Cassini/Huygens Mission Update Thread

[centsworth_II]

A review of first landing images for those still carping on Huygens' images:<br /><br />From the moon: rocks and dust and... craters?<br /><br />From Venus: Fascinating first look but, still... rocks.<br /><br />From Mars: Rocks, sand, dust... more rocks.<br /><br />From Titan: Rivers, coastline, drainage basins, and yes, rocks and sand (of water ice). <br /><br />Those still harping on the quality of the Huygens images are being very petty, considering what the images show us. Whatever you want to say about their quality, it is enough to deliver the goods in terms of seeing the formations I mentioned... and more. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[claywoman]

I for one, think that Huygens gave us so much more then I thought it would!!!<br /><br />I am grateful for ESA and for NASA in cooperating to bring this to all of us. My god, the fact that it hit solid ground and not into a river of this sludge is fantastic!!! I still have a hard time believing that this is a world I never thought I'd be privilaged to see. I don't care that there are only so many pictures or that there was no rover, I'm excited about what we do have because its so much more then anyone knew we'd get!!! <br /><br />I could never nor will I ever be sorry it went and only wish there was another launched yesterday!!! I say don't stop now and please let us know what else you find out about this beautiful world!!!

 

[JonClarke]

kimpoor<br /><br />The media reaction to Huygens has been overwhelmingly positive, other than space daily.<br /><br />500 years since Europeans explored the unknown? Please read some history. In the last 500 years Europeans pioneered exploration of Africa, the oceans, Australia, Antarctica, the Arctic. The names Magellan, Cook, LaParouse, Van Diemen, Pelsart, Bouganville, Flinders, Fitzroy, Amudsen, Shackleton, Scott, Livingston, Burton, Franklin, Speke, Fuchs mean anything to you.<br /><br /><br />The Russian record of space exploration is very good. Out of 11 missions to Venus from Venera 7 onwards 10 were completely successful. Vega 1 and 2 went to Venus and then on to Halley's comet, both completely successful. In the much maligned Mars program, Mars 2, 3, and 5 successful orbited the planet, 6 and 7 were successful mars flybys. Even Phobos two carried out an immensely useful program prior to its premature failure. From Luna 9 onwards out of 23 lunar mission attempts 14 achieved all their missions, including the first soft landings, the first lunar orbiters, and the only lunar sample return and robot rover missions. It is a record to be proud of.<br /><br />The MERs were dormant until needed. Just becayse their systems were being monitored does not mean they were full activated. To my knowledge Russian probes all collected data from every phase from the mission, those with landers did not activate them (although their status was monitored) until they were needed. <br /><br />I detect a view that thinks that only the US matters, than only the US has achieved anything worth achievinbg, that the way the US does things is best. All missions to the moon and beyond, whether from the USSR, ESA, and Japan have been for all mankind - not just those from the US.<br /><br />Multi lingualism is an asset, it helps you think outside your own cultural and national box. I should know. I am bilingual, so is my wife. My parents were trilingual. You should try it.<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>

 

[fangsheath]

Jon,<br /><br />I feel I must apologize for some of my countrymen. Humility seems out of vogue in this country. I would offer a few explanations, but this is not the forum for politics.<br /><br />Given the history of NASA and JPL, both of whom I admire and support, only blind arrogance would take a highly successful mission like this and turn it into a reason not to cooperate with ESA and the world in space flight. Fortunately, the media reaction, even in the U.S., has been extremely positive, as you note. I was very moved hearing the reactions of all the major players to the success, each in their own first language. It was a nice counterpoint to the small-minded nationalism and arrogance of some.

 

[Leovinus]

Please take off-topic discussions elsewhere. This thread is for mission updates only. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[novi]

As I watched the pictures what really surprised me was the light condition on Titan.<br /> <br />Although Titan is so much farther away from the sun than earth, it seems to be over there as bright as on earth.<br /><br />Or has it something to do with adjusting the images and is life on Titan really "darker" than on earth?

 

[anoolios]

I believe that if we all (the space enthusiasts on this board) got together someplace in person, the conversation would be much more amicable than the arguing in this thread would lead one to believe. <br /><br />Anyhow, there is going to be a presentation today by some of the Cassini/Huygens scientists at the University of Arizona in Tucson at 6 p.m. I hope I can make it! I need to get a space.com shirt to wear to these events <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Here is a link to the announcement: http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/9/wa/MainStoryDetails?ArticleID=10416 <br /><br />Here's another announcement link with more info and a map: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/pop/

 

[anoolios]

Dr. Lyn Doose of the DISR team generously took the time to answer some questions from the public recently, he even addresses the issue of image quality: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kholso/expert.htm<br /><br />

 

[fangsheath]

It is really quite remarkable that the probe was able to see as much surface detail as it did, and a testament to DISR design. As Dr. Doose says, light levels at the surface are only about a tenth of a percent of those here. Added to this is the fact that the probe is dropping through the atmosphere and spinning, so relatively fast shutter speeds are necessary. This means the lens cannot be stopped down to improve image quality. Try taking a shot with your digital camera at twilight, using a fast shutter speed and spinning at about 3 revolutions per second, and see what you get.<br /><br />This group of images was taken very close to the surface. This is part of the lowland, for lack of a better term. We may have to come up with new terminology to describe this moonscape. There was some early talk about the possibility that the light-colored spots might be low clouds, Tomasko now seems to conclude that they are surface features. I think so too. But I'm not sure the surrounding features are do to "flows" around the "islands," as has been suggested. I think there may be a dendritic drainage pattern out on these flats as well.

 

[yurkin]

Looks like goods are starting to arrive <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Posted by: Charles Schmidt | January 21, 2005 05:07 PM<br />To Charles: last night's ESA press conference said flatly that the dark material on Titan is just what they thought it would be: dark organic smog of the sort Sagasn predicetd. (That orange color has got to be from compounds that contain nitrogen -- not just hydrocarbons.)<br /><br />The two big (and they ARE big) surprises that Huygens turned up:<br /><br />(1) Methane rain, instead of re-evaporating before reaching the ground as many theorists thought, actually does reach all the way to Titan's surface -- and in significant quantities, although it seems to come only from those small clumps of methane cloud that go wandering about the satellite. What Huygens saw was an eerie cryogenic analog of a terrestrial desert, complete with arroyos and a still-muddy playa created by occasional flash floods. Those clumps of methane cloud are probably packed with major rainstorms (althoyugh given Voyager 1's already announced inability to pick up any radio bursts from lightning, such storms may be lightning-free).<br /><br />(2) Titan has VERY active cryovolcanism -- one of Huygens' photos clearly showed a long tongue of fresh, light-colored water ice running along the surface, which seems to be have a hard domelike surface off which the methane rain runs, taking the dark smog with it, to create a bunch of dark runoff arroyos in the older and more ground-up ice regolith at its foot. But this ice strip therefore must have been extruded out of the subsurface fairly recently in order not to be similarly ground up by whtever process (probably meteoroid impacts) creates the regolith. And Huygens' stereo pairs revealed ridges up to 100 meters high but only several hundred meters wide. (You'll notice that several of the dark arroyos, unlike the others, are strangely straight -- like irrigation ditches rather than rivers -- and are parallel. I presum

 

[JonClarke]

That looks remarkably like some of the stream lines we see on mars at the outflows of some of the large valleys. Are there catastrophic methane floods on Titan?<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>

 

[telfrow]

Stumbled across the following link while killing some time surfing other sites this evening:<br /><br />http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/titan.html<br /><br />Some very nice mosaics of Titan's surface. <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[roj2003]

New here, but best Cassini/Huygens news anywhere. From http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/titan.html & Image 4,<br />am I seeing impact craters or could they be blow-holes?<br />Numerous 'small' craters, nothing big but scattered randomly?<br />Cheers, roj2003

 

[kimpoor]

I think those are just artifacts, judging from the apparent lighting angle.<br /><br />I, too welcome ESA into the fold. I was just frustrated, like others, at the slow data stream. Sorry if I offended. As a University of Arizona grad, I was perhaps expecting too much, being so close to the action.<br /><br />Glad to have ESA and their Euro-engineering expertise. We need to become a space-faring civilization, not just one nation.<br /><br />Kim Poor<br />

 

[flynn]

Simple, I'm English. My Dalmation is called Flynn. Flynn is a name I have used on the internet since day 1.<br /><br />However my dads parents were Irish. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[flynn]

<b>"Site is obviously very busy now and difficult to access. I'm betting someone has already posted the image above. So, to make this post a little more worthwhile, this is for Flynn:" </b><br /><br />Sorry, I been really busy this week and this is the first I've seen this. Thanks for the link, I've bookmarked it for later consumption. (5am here now, really should go bed <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />)<br /><br />I've watched all the commentarys for all 4 Futurama seasons now and I can tell you the team really are geeks and know their math.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[Leovinus]

<i>This is a highly detailed look at the feathery, wavelike patterns in the cloud bands of Saturn's southern hemisphere. Near the center, long filaments wrap around a swirling vortex. Notable is the extreme change in appearance at very high southern latitudes.<br /><br />The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on Dec. 14, 2004, at a distance of 595,000 kilometers (370,000 miles) from Saturn, through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 890 nanometers. It has been highly processed to enhance details. The image scale is about 32 kilometers (20 miles) per pixel. </i><br /><br />Does anybody besides me think that 20 miles per pixel is outstanding? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[elguapoguano]

It just shows you how huge Saturn is. To get that kind of detail at 20 miles a pixel.... Sheesh... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#ff0000"><u><em>Don't let your sig line incite a gay thread ;>)</em></u></font> </div>

 

[flynn]

I wonder what Earth would look like at 20 miles per pixel<br /><br />Somone want to do the math? Would that be about the resolution in the earth shots from the moon? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[fangsheath]

According to my calculations, the earth at 20 miles/pixel would be approximately like this.

 

[Leovinus]

So you're saying that the previous two pictures are to the same scale? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

Not bad. So something the size of an earthly hurricane would be seen in pretty good detail in the Cassini images. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[Leovinus]

What is the best resolution you can get from Hubble or an Earth-based telescope in miles per pixel? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

<font color="yellow">"...same scale?"</font><br /><br />Same resolution, not same scale. Given that Saturn's diameter is 9.4 times Earth's and roughly judging by the curve in your image, I would say Fangsheath's image of Earth would have to be reduced to about 2/3 it's current size to make the scale of the two images about the same. A very rough estimate on my part. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[najab]

I think your image is actually a bit too big. Using a Galileo flyby image, and the Earth's polar diameter as 7900 miles, I got this: