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I can't wait to see more.

The EOSDIS/ECS project. http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/ is a good place to start looking at the project I was on. It's currently the largest satellite data processing and science data repository on the face of the planet. :) (toot toot... there goes my own horn ;))

Anyway... DCE was used to tie several servers together which are the core of the system. I found it very reliable and solid (and that was several years ago).

GJC

Here's a listing of recent nasa Missions. Nasa does a lot more than the press regularly lets us know about...

You have a very detailed description of the spacecraft and the probe a the mission website.

1) They don't fold out. It looks like a bigger dish you sometimes see on TV vans (I would say 1 to 1.5 meters in diameter). There is a picture on the site above of Cassini with a person standing beside it so you can get a sense of the size.

2) Nuclear. You have this explained in the link above.

3) To communicate with the spacecraft NASA uses the Deep Space Network (DSN), which is basically a bunch of large radio tellescopes that are positioned around the Earth so that they cover the whole sky.

4) Don't know about this one so I won't BS.

You have a very detailed description of the spacecraft and the probe a the mission website.

1) They don't fold out. It looks like a bigger dish you sometimes see on TV vans (I would say 1 to 1.5 meters in diameter). There is a picture on the site above of Cassini with a person standing beside it so you can get a sense of the size.

2) Nuclear. You have this explained in the link above.

3) To communicate with the spacecraft NASA uses the Deep Space Network (DSN), which is basically a bunch of large radio tellescopes that are positioned around the Earth so that they cover the whole sky.

4) Don't know about this one so I won't BS.

When warming and dimming are said to cancel, this only be true on average. Warming and dimming are both caused by pollutants, but concentrations for the two will vary from spot to spot. Why is this pertinent? If two adjacent locations are dimmed and/or warmed differently, the resulting temperature differential could result in storms. One source of dimming that NASA is already monitoring is contrails. See http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/GLOBE/

Quote from Nasa's Huygens site (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/subsystems- huygens.cfm):

Much of the battery power will be used to power the timer for the 22 days of "coasting" to Titan.

So, while I agree with you that a timer should essentially be "free", apparently there's more to it than that.

good god, did you say 110m radiotelescope???!!! that's longer than a football field!

hmmm, guess so.

I think Venus could use some more study too. The russian landers managed to take some pictures , but I'd like to see some more of Venus.

Maybe with today's tech we could make landers that last longer and maybe get a rover out of the deal, though it probably couldn't last as long as Spirit and Opportunity.

Or maybe here..., without so much punctuation and spaces: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimed ia/pia07229.html

Here's an explanation of what descent pictures will be taken: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimed ia/pia07229.html/

To hold you up until the first lander pictures are in, here's every image ever taken of Titan by NASA probes.

While admittedly, just because we exist, we are going to change the environment around us. I fail to see the benefit in assuming that nothing that we do can or will affect the global perspective, especially when we have countries around the globe working their industrial magic. We should seek to stave off problems before they occur. In the global scale, if it takes 100 years to stabilize the temperature again, and that's a short time, it may be insufficient for us to adapt to if the temperature increases too fast.

The temperature has been fluctuating since the begining of time and has never been "stable". Source for the original data is http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/
spcific station data:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/stati on_data/

I am not the original poster, but I recognize the source comes from the book "State of Fear" and those sites are where the graphs are originally from.

While admittedly, just because we exist, we are going to change the environment around us. I fail to see the benefit in assuming that nothing that we do can or will affect the global perspective, especially when we have countries around the globe working their industrial magic. We should seek to stave off problems before they occur. In the global scale, if it takes 100 years to stabilize the temperature again, and that's a short time, it may be insufficient for us to adapt to if the temperature increases too fast.

The temperature has been fluctuating since the begining of time and has never been "stable". Source for the original data is http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/
spcific station data:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/stati on_data/

I am not the original poster, but I recognize the source comes from the book "State of Fear" and those sites are where the graphs are originally from.

I'm no science expert, but I think that's been done before.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission

Maybe you meant it's the first time that Man has placed an object on the surface of a moon outside the Earth-Moon system? That may or may not be true (I really have no idea), but it seems more likely.

The best coverage available is at NASA web site. The first images are expected by 17:15 ET. Press conference videos, descent time line, video status reports and projected areas which the Huygens probe would photograph during the descend can be found at the European Space Agency.
The web site also has a very cool 3-D model of the Huygens probe.

Wrong by about 100 years. Global warming was first proposed by Svante Arrhenius in 1895. More recently, serious councern over warming began with Wallace Broecker's 1975 paper, "Climate Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?," (Science 189, 460).

How many people know that Krakatoa, in the eruption of 1883 released more "greenhouse" gases than all of mankind has released since?

Wrong again. Human activity has released something like 200 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. This is much more than Krakatoa released. One way to find this out is to look at the amounts of greenhouse gas in the air over history: levels have risen much more since 1950 than they did over the previous 10,000 years. Carbon concentrations in the atmosphere over the past thousand years almost exactly parallel the consumption of fossil fuels.

If you're talking about water vapor emissions from Krakatoa, you're either being disingenuous or you're just ignoreant. See my comments below about the difference between water vapor and carbon dioxide.

Water vapor accounts for 95% of the "greenhouse" effect.

Water does account for most of the greenhouse effect, but there is an important difference: water is a vapor, so water vapor mixing ratios are always close to equilibrium in the atmosphere. If we add more, it precipitates out very rapidly. Carbon dioxide is a gas, and is not at equilibrium, so if we add more CO2, it will remain in the atmosphere for around a hundred years. It's well known that water vapor acts as a positive feedback that amplifies warming due to other factors. This has been verified with observations taken after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

I hate to say it, but 100 years ago, 60 years ago, even 40 years ago, there weren't SUVs driving around.

Have you heard of the industrial revolution? People were not driving SUVs, but they were certainly burning lots of coal. Beyond this, it's a silly syllogism to say that because Al Gore said something dumb about global warming that this disproves global warming. It's like what Michael Moore does on the left: Paul Wolfowitz says something dumb about the war in Iraq. Therefore the war in Iraq is dumb.

Yes - it is the standard two steps forward, one step back theory. Of course, we might have less sunlight, but hey, who needs it when we have enough lights on at night to be seen from space. I better go invest in some more sun lamps.

Good News from Titan !

The Great Big Telescope (officially the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope) at Green Bank, West Virginia has detected the carrier signal from the Huygens probe.

This means that the spacecraft is alive, has made it through re-entry, and the parachute has deployed.

A total of 17 radio telescopes here on Earth are tracking the Huygens probe, using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry, or VLBI. Using phase referenced VLBI, it should be possible to track the Huygens descent to within about a kilometer on Titan, and to get descent velocities to within a few millimeters / second along the line of site. This will give us a pretty good idea of the winds that the probe encounters as it descends, and also should really nail down the rotation of Titan if the probe makes it to the surface. Here is a more detailed description (pdf file) of what's being done using VLBI from Leonid Gurvits.

While this does not mean that the Huygens mission is a full success (I personally want pictures from the surface!), it does mean that some scientific data will be returned. I can't wait to see more.

First, Beagle was British, not ESA.
Second, the screw-up with Cassini/Huygens was Italian, not ESA.
Third, have you forgotten Giotto?

It seems that the ESA can be successful, but individual European nations can't.

Nice, but it doesn't show the inclination changes since it's a top down view of Saturn. NASA's plots of the Saturn tour show the inclinations. It's not animated, but it's got more info. Check the Subphase Boundaries pages, too.

Live video feed from NASA TV too.

The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla is running a weblog from Huygens mission control in Darmstadt, Germany. This weblog will be updated as events happen, so it should be interesting to watch.

It also looks like NASA TV will have live coverage for much of Friday. You can access their video and audio streams here.

The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla is running a weblog from Huygens mission control in Darmstadt, Germany. This weblog will be updated as events happen, so it should be interesting to watch.

It also looks like NASA TV will have live coverage for much of Friday. You can access their video and audio streams here.

"Flamebait"? What, did you not see his post title and the first part of his sentence, or do you just not know what flamebait is?

I do agree though, mostly because it's a damn adfest. However, when saying something is "about to do" something, like the probe about to land in this case, the link should be to somewhere WITH MORE INFORMATION (preferably official), and not some third rate ad festering news site.

in this 2.4MB PDF.

Ummmm, Since when is Pluto a planet?

I always thought it was a Kuiper Belt object

Like the Pluto/Chiron?. Closer ration than Earth/Moon.. So there is a closer ratio example in *our* system.

Hypothesis are suppose to educated guesses based on *current* knowledge. Thus, you are not hypothesizing, but just guessing.

Like the Pluto/Chiron?. Closer ration than Earth/Moon.. So there is a closer ratio example in *our* system.

Hypothesis are suppose to educated guesses based on *current* knowledge. Thus, you are not hypothesizing, but just guessing.

Saturn has 35 moons! And two rings!

Saturn has a lot more than two rings.

Maybe it is Deep Impact .
After all, it wouldn't be the first time Nasa has missed its target ;)

Pic 1

Pic 2

but its probably part of this (see the springs and other debris in the sand)

Pic 1

Pic 2

but its probably part of this (see the springs and other debris in the sand)

Pic 1

Pic 2

but its probably part of this (see the springs and other debris in the sand)

Yes, it's the heat shield, which turned itself inside out. Here it is in color, from a different angle.

So the NASA team has been poking around the planet for more than a(n Earth) year, right? Most of the surprises happened months ago... now it's just a matter of finding something to do until the batteries quit holding their charge. Looking at the heat shield doesn't seem like a very revealing bit of science -- more of a "gee look how far we've come" sort of cool thing.

Then they get a picture of a big freaking rock with a bunch of wierd holes, sitting there in the middle of a windblown plain. Not covered in dust like everything else... even the wind patterns in the dust around it look new.

What do you think the first guy to get that picture said when he looked, and then looked again, and realized that this wasn't going to be just another day on Mars?

I still prefer a cute bunny over metal robot.

To make a good sci-fi story though, Opportunity might have just reached its expiry date and that'll keep everybody in suspense for a long time.

Better keep a FORTRAN book handy.

GCM ModelE http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/

WRF (mesoscale model/regional) http://www.wrf-model.org/

Approx. 40mb downloads page

ftp://ftp.giss.nasa.gov/pub/edgcm/EdGCM_Mac_Instal ler.sit OS X

the parts of Greenland that were settled by Scandinavians a 1000 years ago were, (and to an extent, still are) covered in vibrantly green grass. They certainly wouldn't have had any knowledge of thousands of kilometres of ice in the interior, but where they were in Greenland really was Green.

Even in your super pedantic mode, answer the following:

Which country is more covered in ice and snow, greenland http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Countries/Greenland/1 74_2.html or iceland http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Countries/Iceland/185 .html.

Exactly, Greenland.

Sheesh.

Even in your super pedantic mode, answer the following:

Which country is more covered in ice and snow, greenland http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Countries/Greenland/1 74_2.html or iceland http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Countries/Iceland/185 .html.

Exactly, Greenland.

Sheesh.

My personal favorite (obviously a Pump Up The Volume fan)

Bruce Willis is included in the mission.

He is being sent compressed on the mini data CD.

Look here

I'm torn however, whilst this does mean we will survive, does it mean that the MPAA will sue Nasa for unlicensed copyright infringement?

I'm there. (Unless there's a bill from the Comet Aliens. [Or worse like in David Brin's story in the Jan/Feb Analog.] Then it was someone else.)

Theres a few good ones.

All
the lonely children of the universe!

Billy (greedy, theres lots)

Unsurprising really, but I wonder if it was one the editors

and one more (omg @ this)
Brucey!

Theres a few good ones.

All
the lonely children of the universe!

Billy (greedy, theres lots)

Unsurprising really, but I wonder if it was one the editors

and one more (omg @ this)
Brucey!

Theres a few good ones.

All
the lonely children of the universe!

Billy (greedy, theres lots)

Unsurprising really, but I wonder if it was one the editors

and one more (omg @ this)
Brucey!

Theres a few good ones.

All
the lonely children of the universe!

Billy (greedy, theres lots)

Unsurprising really, but I wonder if it was one the editors

and one more (omg @ this)
Brucey!

Odd that they didn't mention anything about the CD they sent up with it.