Huygens is alive

[Stargazer]

http://planetary.org/news/2005/huygens_blog.html

 

According to this blog, the Huygens just started transmitting its carrier signal. This blog will be updated, one hopes, frequently as things unfold. More info, as usual, on these sites:

 

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html

[Tormod]

I am watching the live TV broadcasts from ESA and they just said that Huygens appear to have landed, and data from at least one scientific instrument has been found in the signals from the probe.

[infamous]

I am watching the live TV broadcasts from ESA and they just said that Huygens appear to have landed, and data from at least one scientific instrument has been found in the signals from the probe.

Outstanding!!!

[infamous]

I have this feeling that we are about to learn some wonderful things, I can't prove it, I just have this feeling. Maybe we could call it faith.

[Stargazer]

Not so much faith, since we now know that the probe has landed and we know that science data is coming in right now. No doubt will we learn new things, hardly unexpected. I'm not sure why it's a faith.

[infamous]

Not so much faith, since we now know that the probe has landed and we know that science data is coming in right now. No doubt will we learn new things, hardly unexpected. I'm not sure why it's a faith.

Future events Stargazer; I'm speaking here about future events that bring with them new information. If I believed that we were to fail, I think you could call that a lack of faith in the program, wouldn't you??

[Stargazer]

Not if you believed that you would get new info despite a likely failure. I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. It's not a faith that we will learn new things about Titan now when we know it was successful. It's very likely.

[infamous]

Not if you believed that you would get new info despite a likely failure. I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. It's not a faith that we will learn new things about Titan now when we know it was successful. It's very likely.

Getting any new information would mean that it wasn't a failure, at least in the total sense of the word. My only point here is, faith will wait for proof. If there is no faith, there is no waiting.

[Stargazer]

I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't have faith in the success or failure of the probe before it even entered the atmosphere, for example. I just knew that it was built to do exactly that, and that it was released on the right trajectory and so on. So I was pretty sure it would be successful. This is not faith, though, since I thought faith was something that was not based on evidence or reason.

[Stargazer]

Images from Titan published. I saw the first one a while ago on ESA-TV:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html

 

Also, go to the blog for an image from the surface.

http://planetary.org/news/2005/huygens_blog.html

[BlameTheEx]

Whey hey. It landed. Europe got one right!

 

But what's really impresive is that despite the temptation of an atmosphere, we didn't put a flag on it.

[pgrmdave]

Imagine there's no countries,

It isnt hard to do,

Nothing to kill or die for,

No religion too,

Imagine all the people

living life in peace...

[Stargazer]

I think we should plan for the next step now! I would like to see rovers, boats and balloons on Titan, that would be excellent.

[BlameTheEx]

Stargazer

 

Rovers and balloons please, although it might be a good idea to make the rovers amphibious in case they splash down. Not much point to boats as once you have seen one bit of water you have seen it all.

 

This is perhaps the only bit of real estate in the solar system that justifies balloons. Normally a low orbit satellite is the better bet for mapping the surface, but this time we need to get under the clouds.

 

Bugger manned missions to mars. For far less we could scatter rovers around the solar system. Who can say what wonders are waiting for us on other moons of jupiter and saturn?

 

While I have opposed nuclear powered drives for the outer planets, we desperately need a small, nuclear powered rover. The capabilities of the current rovers are brilliant. They are under powered, rather too stupid, and prone to slipping but they deliver good science. Their biggest failings were limited chemical analysis, and no electron microscope but we can hope that instrument miniaturisation can add capabilities without increasing their size much. If not they are still pretty good.