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Palomar

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm]Total Titan Flyby Coverage

*The former thread has 234 posts already, and given how much info and discussion might result on and after Oct. 26, I thought it'd be a good time to start a new thread; the other has so much info and images in it, I'd hate for it to collapse...16 pages' worth! 

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.htm … 4296]Titan Flyby Mission Description (repost from previous thread)

Can't wait and good luck!  This is going to be awesome, a taste of what's in store for the actual descent of Huygens.

--Cindy 

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

remcook

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

some pretty pictures already! 

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … ...138.jpg

Palomar

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

*Thanks remcook (and nice to see you again!).

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gs2. … ge]Zooming in on Titan  :up:

"...imaging coverage planned during Cassini's first very close Titan flyby on Oct. 26, 2004 (tomorrow...yippee!).   
Colored lines enclose regions that will be covered at different imaging scales as Cassini approaches Titan...The yellow X marks the predicted landing site for the Huygens probe...  Features a few hundred meters or yards across may be discernible..."

--Cindy

::edit::  "It's currently winter in Titan's northern hemisphere, so high northern latitudes are not illuminated, resulting in the map's upper limit at roughly 45 degrees north latitude."

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

REB

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

Remcook, I hope that is a methane ocean at the top of the picture. And I am guessing that those are the polar methane thunderstorms on the left side of the picture.

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

remcook

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

looks like clouds alright looks like the same clouds as from the previous flyby...so that side must be the south pole. is that right? the saturn pictures are also tilted, so I guess so.

Methane oceans? who knows? we will find out soon I guess. Could be some hydrocarbon sludge though...or ... hmmm...something interesting.

Good to be back. I was on holiday and moving to England. so was internet-less for a while

SpaceNut

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Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,946

Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

What is unique about the mission is the fact that it will use Titan for a slingshot 44 times thoughout the mission length.

The next will be in mid December when it will release the probe for landing on Tatin around christmas day.

UA scientists anxious as Cassini approaches flyby of Saturn's largest moon

Shaun Barrett

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From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Registered: 2001-12-28

Posts: 2,843

Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

That's one really cool moon!
    (And at about  -180 deg.C, who can argue?!       )

  [Sorry, I'm just getting a little over-excited          :laugh:  ]

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The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

SpaceNut

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

This has been the best article to include all the instruments of Cassini thus far that I have seen. Also at the bottom of the article is a chart of Saturns moons.

Cassini set to pierce moon's haze

1. Antennas enabling communication with Earth
2. Boom carrying instrument to measure magnetic fields
3. Two cameras will take 300,000 pictures of the planet
4. Infra-red spectrometer analyses Saturn's temperature and composition
5. Radioisotope thermoelectric generators supply 750W of power
6. Cassini has two engines - one is a back-up
7. Thrusters used for small changes of direction or speed
8. Huygens probe will land on Saturn's largest moon, Titan
9. Plasma spectrometer measures charged particles and solar winds

This article Spacecraft aims for titanic discovery
is the first that I have seen them mention the Nasa TV web channels in. Plus lots of good times with regards to viewing web site links along with where to find the first photos take by the European built lander as mentioned in the
Cassini gives Iapetus a wide berth where they have made course corrections so as to not be gravitationally disturb as they go by Iapetus. Fearing risk, NASA shifts path of craft near Saturn taking extra care to ensure the landing of Cassini’s Huygens probe on a moon in January.

Palomar

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

*Data rolling in...yeehaw! 

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gs2. … e]Seasonal Differences

::edit::  "The presence of haze in the northern hemisphere was also observed in images returned by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1981. The haze distribution was reversed, north to south, in observations taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope from 1994 to 2000."  Whoa.  What the... ?  (If I've read that somewhere before, I don't recall it.)

-*-

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gs2. … image]High in the Titan Atmosphere

"At the northern high-latitude edge of the image, additional striations are visible, caused by particulates that are at a high enough altitude to be illuminated by the Sun near the horizon despite the surface below being in darkness."

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Titans]http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gs2.cgi?path=../multimedia/images/titan/images/PIA06107.jpg&type=image]Titan's "Xanadu"

--Cindy 

::edit:: 

SpaceNut's post:
Cassini gives Iapetus a wide berth where they have made course corrections so as to not be gravitationally disturb as they go by Iapetus.

*Yeah...and also to avoid being accosted and perhaps gobbled up by the Monolith there...      :laugh:

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Palomar

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Posts: 9,734

Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

*Thanks for posting that illustration, SpaceNut.  Does anyone know if Cassini will be able to take images of Huygens disengaging and departing from it?  I've not yet come across any information relative to that possibility. 

As we know, the Apollo 13 astronauts took pics of the damaged CM as it moved away from them...just wondering if Cassini has a similar capability.  Would be cool to watch a video of the process, but pics would be fine too of course.

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Rxke

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Posts: 3,669

Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

Mars Express took a picture of Beagle 2, so who knows? If they have the capability, they will do it, engineering-wise it's good to have as much data about your devices as possible, to check out nothing anomalous is going on.

Julius Caeser

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From: Malta

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

How long is the communication link between Earth and Cassini?I'm surprised as to the lenght of time its goona take to confirm the flyby?Flyby occurred like an hour ago and it will take another 7 hours to confirm that!

Julius Caeser

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From: Malta

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Posts: 105

Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

Ok..i got that;instruments will be pointing towards Titan and then will fly over the night side of the moon out of view from Earth and that will take a few hours until Cassini will be able to point the high gain antenna and transmit to us!Hope bad weather on Earth wont affect retrieval of Cassini's signal.Fingers crossed!

Julius Caeser

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

New Titan images :low medium resolution images in on Nasa Tv

hubricide

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

If you go to the Cassini Imaging page at http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/]here you will see some images of Titan..  it looks like a cloudy hazy thing to me.

Palomar

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Registered: 2002-05-30

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … fm]Collage of images  Check out "South Polar Cloud Movie" too.  This page updated of course.  Awesome. 

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

REB

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA06125.jpg]Look at the far right image in this set of three.

The south side of the dark feature sure looks like a shoreline. And those look like islands out in the dark feature. Is that a flooded crater I see in the dark area?

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

Julius Caeser

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From: Malta

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

It does look like what you are saying..also i should add that the dark streaks overlapping the white areas seem to be drainage channels into the dark areas!However the trouble with that is i believe we were told that the dark areas were rich in water ice whereas the bright areas rich in hydrocarbons.The supposed shoreline would therefore infer that the liquid on the surface is in the area supposedly rich in water ice whereas what we're looking for are liquid hydrocarbons;meaning the bright areas should be the ones to contain the lakes or seas theorised by scientists.

REB

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

I have been looking for "rivers", but we probably need better resolution. The polar thunderstorms would be a good place to look for head'water's.

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

Julius Caeser

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From: Malta

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

Assuming the dark areas are rich in water ice(thats what we were told after the first Titan flyby at SOI)and the dark channels draining into the dark areas therefore have been sculpted by water;we know that water at -200 celcius is solid and thus the explanation for flowing water on Titans surface could be due to geyser activity which erupts liquid water at higher tempererature,evntually freezing over on the surface forming the dark areas!

REB

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

Water on Titan would be like lava is here on Earth. I believe a water/ammonia mixture has lower freezing point so that might help water “lava” to stay liquid longer. Are there water volcanoes on Titan? Might be.

Methane, however can stay a liquid in Titan’s environment, and if those thunderstorms are raining methane, and it doesn’t evaporate soon after it falls, then there should be methane drainage channels.

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

Julius Caeser

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

Anyways,the radar images should answer that question as to where is liquid if any and solid..and that will happen in a few hours time!good luck.Whats the freezing point of water ammonia mixture?

REB

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

While looking for the freezing point of a water ammonia mixturehttp://www.es.ucl.ac.uk/research/planetaryweb/undergraduate/dom/titan/titan.htm]this interesting page about Titan

Whatever we find is going on on Titan, I am sure it will be interesting.

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

Palomar

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Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

Are there water volcanoes on Titan? Might be.

*We may find out.  ???  Look forward to what the scientists have to say...

Interesting that, in at least one of the images via JPL, Titan is referred to as a planet.  Not a moon...a planet.  Maybe that was a typo, but I'd like to think the folks at NASA/JPL wouldn't make a typo like that!  (:edit:  Is consideration being given to giving Titan status as a planet, even though it is a satellite? :end edit:)

The bright clouds of the southern polar region are especially curious to me.

--Cindy

::EDIT::  Just a hunch, but my guess (for what it's worth...ha ha) is that the dark areas aren't liquid but rather is what the captions speculate:  Dark material (dry).

::EDIT 2:: 

Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer...at specific wavelengths, surface features can be seen through Titan's haze, while at other wavelengths, the surface remains completely hidden.

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Palomar

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From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan...

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gs2. … e]Freckled with storms; energetic atmosphere

*Dark storms rimmed with bright clouds.  :up:

Interesting little tidbit:  "The white churning clouds are at a latitude where winds blow to the west – one of the few such places on Saturn.  This latitude has been active since the beginning of 2004 and has been informally named 'Storm Alley' by Cassini imaging scientists."

Wish they'd get Cassini to northern Saturn, soon.  Would definitely like a Cassini shot of Saturn as a crescent, from above (or below, what the heck) and showing the night-side as well.  I've only seen the Voyager image of that.

--Cindy

::EDIT::  Marc Boucher, a columnist for spaceref.com, had this to say about the latest Titan images (dated today):  "Later this evening higher resolution images will be available."  :up:

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)