Cassini/Huygens Mission Update Thread

[JonClarke]

How do you know these images are out of focus? You don't. They are low resolution, yes. Is this because of lack of processing? perhaps - you don't know. is it because of low light? You don't know. is it because of goop on the lens? You don't know. You obviously have forgotten the first images from Spirit and Oppotunity. One looked flat and boring the other was a low resolution set of grey blobs. So why are you so quick to jump to conclusions and to condemn? I amazed atthe detail in the descent images. <br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[spacechump]

And now you're dumping photoshopped images on us sross? Do you have no shame? You're as bad as kaisern and soulseeker up there. Why don't you guys actually learn a thing or two instead of whining?

 

[wvbraun]

I think he was joking (although it was lame IMHO).

 

[spacechump]

<i>I think he was joking (although it was lame IMHO).</i><br /><br />I can't tell with him. He comes off as a very bitter and naive person sometimes.

 

[spacechump]

The best anyone can do is use the spectra info from the images to make a guess.

 

[spacechump]

<i>That's the best we can do. Not take the data further than we are reasonably sure of & to be clear about what we know and what we surmise, but cannot confirm. It's called normal scientific caution.</i><br /><br />I wholeheartedly agree.

 

[yurkin]

<font color="yellow"> "...those stones look like they've been subject to water erosion."</font><br /><br />There’s very little chance these blocks are subject to water erosion. At that temperature water is frozen as hard as a rock. Certainly it won’t be causing any erosion., more likely its what’s being eroded.<br />Steve I would have thought you’d point that out.<br />

 

[wvbraun]

Check out this site: Fantastic pictures (colored panoramas!)

 

[arobie]

<font color="yellow">"There are NO known seas. There are flat, probably frozen regions and there are round formations, probably craters."</font><br /><br />Watching the Titan special that played on the science channel after landing, one of the scientists mentioned that the "seas" are most likely a tar-like substance. <br /><br />And if IIRC the scientists also mentioned that there is ethane and methane vapor in the air. Why wouldn't that condense into liquid?<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"There are NO known seas.</font><br /><br />Remember we have only seen less than a decimal point of a percent of Titan.

 

[silylene old]

<font color="yellow">"...those stones look like they've been subject to water erosion." <br /><br />There’s very little chance these blocks are subject to water erosion. At that temperature water is frozen as hard as a rock. Certainly it won’t be causing any erosion., more likely its what’s being eroded. <br />Steve I would have thought you’d point that out. </font><br /><br />I know a lot of people (including planetary scientists) have been speculating on the evidence of liquid erosion based upon the rounded appearance of the surface "rocks".<br /><br />I simply want to point out that if the "rocks" were originally composed of frozen gas clathrates (such as trapped ethane / methane / propane / NH3 / CO2 in ice), that sublimation processes over time would round the corners and edges of the "rocks", since the area/volume ratio of corners and edges is greater than larger flat areas of the "rock". So no liquid would be necessary to give the erosional cobblestone appearance according to this hypothesis.<br /><br />In fact, to extend my hypothesis further, perhaps the icey "rocks" may slowly collect gases from the atmosphere during cold cycles, and lose same gases during warm cycles, like a frozen "sponge". The collection/sublimation cycles would possibly expand / shrink the "rock" volume slightly. This mechanism should also round off any corners.<br /><br />This hypothesis would be interesting to study in the lab ! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[arobie]

<font color="yellow">I gave a plausible hypothesis, is all.</font><br /><br />So did he, thats all.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Based upon what analysis? What data and what instruments?</font><br /><br />I don't know if you saw the program, but the scientists they interviewed are the scientists from the mission control and the scientists whose job it is to analyze the data. Since it is his job to analyze, it's his and other scientist's analysis. As for data and instuments, they have first access to the data from the instruments from the huygens.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">I gave a plausible hypothesis, is all.</font><br /><br />So did the scientists, that's all. If you want to question the hypothesis, question IT instead of trying to make the professionals look bad.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Remember we have seen only less than a decimal point of Titan." <br /><br />I dont' know what a decimal point necessarily means. It's the number NEXT to the decimal which is important. I think you have a bit of a mixed phrase here.</font><br /><br />I think you meant to quote me correctly. I said:<br /><br />"Remember we have seen only less than a decimal point <i>of a percent</i> of Titan."<br /><br />I probably should have said:<br /><br />Remember we have only explored less than a decimal point, or in other words, way less than one percent of Titan.<br /><br />And we barely explored what we did explore, not to knock Huygens...I thinks its awesome and I love it, but it was not moveable, and couldn't really poke around. I am not unhappy with it, I just want to keep things in perspective.

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>How is he ignorant...?</i><br /><br />If not ignorant, then perhaps either unserious or unreasonable.<br /><br /><i>COME ON, PEOPLE! In-focus is not too much to ask! I understand there's fog and haze and a hostile environment, but how about some in-focus pictures of haze and fog and a hostile environment?! All those pictures are OUT OF FOCUS!</i><br /><br />But it is too much to ask at this stage. Men and women, some of whom are seeing their careers culminate in this fantastic success of the Huygens probe, have been working hard to transform the two or three floppies of data retrieved into something useful and informative. And are working hard right now. They have a great deal invested in this and want the very best results from their efforts.<br /><br />Some others here - BobVanX and Shishka among them - have suggested the changes observed in the gif might be precipitation of some kind. This was the first thing which struck me also. We might not just be seeing haze and fog, but perhaps rain as well. Even a car with windshield wipers running offers poor visibility through its windshield in conditions of rain and fog, though a car obviously could not do the amazing things the Huygens probe has done.<br /><br />Here is a manmade miracle right before our eyes: Some of the brightest and most dedicated members of our species have built something about the size of a go-cart and sent it on a 7-year journey through deep space out toward the edge of our solar system. And have choreographed - from a distance so formidible it even tasks the speed of light - a landing on an alien world about which little is known. Giving us the gift of knowledge, strange beauty and compelling mystery partly unveiled.<br /><br />Mars, a world much closer to ours about which we have known much more, has claimed many probes and only grudgingly given up its secrets. That our first attempt to visit Titan - so much farther away, about which we have known so much less - should be carried off so brill

 

[qzzq]

<i>Here is a manmade miracle right before our eyes: Some of the brightest and most dedicated members of our species have built something about the size of a go-cart and sent it on a 7-year journey through deep space out toward the edge of our solar system. And have choreographed - from a distance so formidible it even tasks the speed of light - a landing on an alien world about which little is known. Giving us the gift of knowledge, strange beauty and compelling mystery partly unveiled.</i> <br /><br />Hear, hear! <img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>***</p> </div>

 

[fangsheath]

Here is another very interesting area. I have taken the raw image and contrasted it up while blurring the image artifacts. <br /><br />This looks to me like an uplift process is going on, creating concentric cracks, and material is spreading outward. Looks a bit like a cow pie, actually! There appear to be a variety of materials and a suggestion that dark material has flowed out of the center at some point.<br /><br />I think most people will be amazed at the processed images. When I look at the raws I realize that there are so many things that can be done to improve them, with the right tools. Unfortunately, I don´t have access to most of them.

 

[claywoman]

Well I for one am not disappointed at all. Unfortunately I was gone most of yesterday and today so came home to a multitude of posts and pictures I hadn't seen yet. <br /><br />I guess being a historian rather then a scientist, without a scientist's eye, I was flabergasted that we got pictures at all!!! I mean, we had no idea whether or not there was land, or liquid or whatever and yet we landed on solid!!! I personally wondered if the clouds would be clear down to the ground and thus, cover up anything within sight of the camera!!! I realize that it is darker there then any place else we've tried to film!!! OMG, what a remarkable job they've done just to get the few pictures we've seen out to the public!!!<br /><br />I heard the other night that some of these scientists have worked on this project for over 25 years? trying to get it to fruition? My God, that is almost a whole lifetime!!! These people that worked so hard on this project deserve our adulation rather then critiques!!! This is too phenomenal, and I for one will gaze at the pictures until my death wondering how many eons to took to get that moon the way it is now? What history it could tell if we just listen. I don't care if there are not little Titanians with signs reading, 'Yankees go home!'

 

[centsworth_II]

I wish more of those who claim, by their very presence here, to be interested in space science had your attitude. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[claywoman]

thank you for that. Sometimes I feel really stupid here reading posts that are so far above my head that I have to stop and let it sink in a bit.<br /><br />Like I said, I'm a Historian, not a scientist but I'm also trained to observe, and this was such a unique and wonderful time in my life. I remember as a young girl, watching the greats like Shepard, Glenn and the rest going up, out of our 'atmosphere', circling our planet, and coming back to earth, and I distrinctly remembering not breathing until they landed safely in the water. To come this far, and to see us send rovers to Mars, and probes to different moons is more then I can handle.<br /><br />I read Steve's post about there not being life, not one molecule, not one atom....but Steve there is life out there! In my views there is life in the wind, in the atmosphere, in the soil/ice whatever. Maybe not biological life yet, but does a baby start out running marathons? No, and our space program is still in its infancy!!! Our search for life has started, and titan gave us a view of its life. Yes, its hostile to us, but it gave us a view and we can learn so much of its history and we will!!!<br /><br />All things in every new world, or old world has a life and a story and we are seeing less the a fraction of one percent, but there is more! So very much more to learn and I hope we will keep striving for that learning!!! I hope we don't listen to the naysayers of this world and not stop seeking what is beyond the horizon otherwise we will never find answers to the whys or the whats....

 

[retro555]

Fantastic processed images just released! See link below. They are stunning in their clarity and clearly show channels feeding into dark regions (maybe liquid ethane). What an incredible landscape, unlike anything else in the Solar System! The upcoming mosaics will be breathtaking. We must go back!<br />Heck, use the NASA Mars Science Laboratory development work that is already underway and eventual lessons learned from the upcoming 2009 mission and sent one of those babies to Titan. Heat the instruments arms with RTGs to protect against the terrible cold. Then throw in an orbiting relay, and we're good to go. May get there by 2017.<br /><br />http://www.planetarysociety.org/news/2005/huygens_update_0116.html

 

[rogers_buck]

You forgot Eros. <br /><br />With respect to bodies we have landed on...

 

[silylene old]

Here is another interesting observation, looking at the raw image triplets.<br /><br />Look at the bottom frame of the triplets - the camera pointing downwards. I think after the lander rested on the surface, this camera was facing downwards, at the surface and close to it.<br />http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kholso/triplets36.htm<br /><br />Comparing frame after frame, a white blob grows on the lens, then shrinks. This happens for a couple of cycles, through pages 35-37 of the photo triplets (as organized on the DISR team website).<br /><br />Question is - what is this blob on pages 35-37 in the triplet bottom frame?<br /><br />My hypothesis: The blob is a liquid drop condensing on the lens, which then either falls off, or evaporates.<br /><br />Can someone animate this? The bottom frame of the triplet from pages 35-37? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[the_masked_squiggy]

Has anyone out there considered, that with the various elements out there--i.e., not just water--reacting differently to the cold temperatures, that we may not have exclusively rock-hard substances, but possibly some with the consistency of slush? In that case, fluid erosion isn't that shocking an artifact to find. With the weight of an ocean of that sort of material, it would probably behave very like a liquid ocean. Or even, if this is some kind of glacially carved basin, and the pebbles are just debris, wouldn't you find something similar? They would probably, in fact, LOOK "like they've been subject to water erosion".

 

[arobie]

Welcome to space.com forums!<br /><br />Methane (After nitrogen, which makes up approximately 94%, methane makes up approximately most of the remaining 6%) <br />Freezing Point: -182*C<br />Boiling Point: -161.5*C<br /><br />Ethane<br />Freezing Point: -183.2*C<br />Boiling Point: -88.6*C<br /><br />Titan's Average Temperature: 94*K or -179.15*C<br /><br />Since methane and ethane's freezing points are below the average temperature of Titan, they could exist as liquids on Titan.<br /><br />Methane's Stats<br />Ethane's Stats<br />Titan's Stats

 

[bobvanx]

Here.<br /><br />I don't think it looks like a drop; it actually looks like material ebbing. Is the honeycomb pattern from the fiber optics?

 

[the_masked_squiggy]

Thank you! I hadn't yet considered that. Also, I'm not entirely new, just have been absent for a while. You may have known me previously as girl_of_ricimer.

 

[captainjacksparrow]

Looking at the unprocessed raw images again I have to say the shoreline regions do, at least to my eye, looks like liquid, or possiblity a tar like substance as some have suggested, but to my eyes it looks more like liquid.<br /><br />I asked a friend, who is a Doctor of Hydrology, and that was his impression as well. Not saying it necessarily is, but it is intriguing! Doesn't look dry to me as some ppl suggest.