New Mars Forums

I have lost all respect for esa. I won't even capitialize it anymore. JPL on the other hand is the best. I hope we don't ever use anything built by esa for our Mars missions of any kind. That would be disastrous.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned somewhere else but has everyone heard the sounds recorded by the Huygens microphone?
    Most of them are pretty weird - http://planetary.org/sounds/huygens_sounds.html]check it out.     

Forgot to mention in my last post my surprise at how well lit the surface features are.  Considering how far Sol is from the Saturnian system and etc., I presume some of the lighting has to do with the reflective (?) or absorptive (?) qualities of the thick haze itself? 

--Cindy

I also surprise.

"How thick is the atmosphere? A person standing on Titan's surface in the daytime would experience a level of daylight equivalent to 1/1000 the daylight on Earth's surface. This comparison not only takes into account the thickness of the atmosphere, but also Titan's greater distance from the Sun. Still, light levels on Titan's surface are 350 times brighter than moonlight on Earth under a full moon." http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/tita … sphere.cfm

NASA sometimes bends over backwards to public pressure and trys to keep happy from Crackpots in the USA. The European Space poeple have a have a different data release policy than NASA and they seem to be cautious not to let scientific teams other than the principal investigating teams of each experiment to have access to the data, before the first publications are done...

Incidentally, the reason the ESA doesn't immediately release raw data is that it undercuts the scientists who have worked so hard to make the project successful. By all rights, they should have the first look at the data and the chance to make some important discoveries. How would you feel if you had invested 10 years of your life on a project, and when the first data from that project finally came back there was something of obvious, earth shattering importance in frame 107, but while you were still looking at frame 10 some joe, shmoe on the internet had already scanned through and found 107. You had done all the work, but you'd get none of the credit. That would suck.

I think that the reason NASA releases raw data immediately on receiving it is that they (NASA) are overly sensitive to the idiots who scream, "WHAT ARE THEY HIDING FROM US???11??? NASA NOES THE TRUTH!!!!111oneone!!!!"

Aliens , Martains, Area 51, Face on Mars....and 10% of the US public thinks NASA never went to the Moon ? Maybe they watch too much Xfiles ??

It should be wrong to try and please these crackpots

The raw images are no longer available at the Arizona site.  A mirror was set up here
http://homepage.mac.com/lyford/j/raw/_. … w/_._.html

QUOTE 
This image was returned yesterday, 14 January 2005, by ESA's Huygens probe during its successful descent to land on Titan. This is the coloured view, following processing to add reflection spectra data, gives a better indication of the actual colour of the surface. Initially thought to be rocks or ice blocks, they are more pebble-sized. The two rock-like objects just below the middle of the image are about 15 centimetres (left) and 4 centimetres (centre) across respectively, at a distance of about 85 centimetres from Huygens. The surface is darker than originally expected, consisting of a mixture of water and hydrocarbon ice. There is also evidence of erosion at the base of these objects, indicating possible fluvial activity.

This composite was produced from images returned yesterday, 14 January 2005, by ESA's Huygens probe during its successful descent to land on Titan. It shows a full 360-degree view around Huygens. The left-hand side, behind Huygens, shows a boundary between light and dark areas. The white streaks seen near this boundary could be ground 'fog', as they were not immediately visible from higher altitudes. As the probe descended, it drifted over a plateau (centre of image) and was heading towards its landing site in a dark area (right). From the drift of the probe, the wind speed has been estimated at around 6-7 kilometres per hour. These images were taken from an altitude of about 8 kilometres and a resolution of about 20 metres per pixel.

That's great news about the Cassini deflection manoeuvre.   :up:

    And Titan's flattened North Pole .. hmm .. fascinatinger and fascinatinger!!    
    What a year we've had!   

Here we go for Titan it's all happening now !!

QUOTE 
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, USA, a part of the global network of radio telescopes involved in tracking the Huygens Titan probe, has detected the probe's 'carrier' (tone) signal.

The detection occurred between 11:20 and 11:25 CET, shortly after the probe began its parachute descent through Titan's atmosphere. The extremely feeble signal was first picked up by the Radio Science Receiver supplied by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This signal is an important indication that the Huygens probe is 'alive'. However, it does not contain yet any substance; the latter is expected to come a few hours later via the Cassini spacecraft.
What the Green Bank radio telescope has detected is only a ‘carrier’ signal. It indicates that the back cover of Huygens must have been ejected, the main parachute must have been deployed and that the probe has begun to transmit, in other words, the probe is ‘alive’. This, however, still does not mean that any data have been acquired, nor that they have been received by Cassini. The carrier signal is sent continuously throughout the descent and as such does not contain any scientific data. It is similar to the tone signal heard in a telephone handset once the latter is picked up.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/]http://www … /SPECIALS/

QUOTE 

Mission managers for the European Space Agency's Huygens probe said the spacecraft is on course for its descent to Saturn's mysterious moon Titan on Friday, Jan. 14. The probe, which detached from NASA's Cassini orbiter last month, will be the first object to explore on-site the unique environment of Titan, whose chemistry is thought to be very similar to that of early Earth, before life formed. The data gathered during the probe's 2 1/2 hour descent through Titan's atmosphere will be transmitted from the probe to the Cassini orbiter and then back to Earth.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … ...402.jpg

Let's hope the Cassini-Huygens lander can make it with a good landing

A news conference is coming up at 1230 GMT (7:30 a.m. EST). Cassini will resume communications with Earth about three hours later, and the data playback will continue for several hours.

You don't witness a first soft landing on a celestial body very often. So far there were only four. Three were Russian: first Moon landing, first Mars landing and first Venus landing; and one American: first landing on asteroid Eros. Huygens will be fifth "first" -- and first European one.

1157 UTC (6:57 am EST) - Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer begins sampling atmosphere (about 67 minutes ago, Titan time)

This is the last of Huygens's instruments to be activated fully. The descent is expected to take 137 minutes in total, plus or minus 15 minutes. Throughout its descent, the spacecraft will continue to spin at a rate of between 1 and 20 rotations per minute, allowing the camera and other instruments to see the entire panorama around the descending spacecraft.