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Best Images Yet Of Saturn's Moon Titan
DoraLives writes "During recent commissioning observations of a new instrument designed for a completely different purpose, the European Southern Observatory managed to grab the best imagery yet of Saturn's largest moon. Although the imagery bears more than just a passing resemblance to some of the quainter maps of other planets there's no denying the superb, sub tenth arcsecond, resolution of the new images. And of course, if that's not good enough, they're sending a a little something to land on Titan next January. Should be interesting."
Until this probe in January brings something where you can actually see something these pictures are useless like some radar-telescope probes from a "new found star" somebody might have found.
These images were mocked up in the GIMP.
they're sending a a little something to land on Titan next January.
Well, we should be glad they are not attempting to land on Europa.
How many posts till somebody mentions new pictures of Uranus and links to goatse?
EGG, the Electronic Gamers Guild
Jesse Jackson offers his services to negotiate a peace treaty between the microbes on Titan and the humans on Earth..
--- We need more Ron Paul!
C'mon. Look at the pictures yourself. Parent's post is appropriate and funny. Certinaly not Trolling.
Considering the immense distance between Earth and Titan, it is incredible that we can use radar to see any surface detail at all. If the results from the ESA's Huygens probe are interesting enough, perhaps a Titan-dedicated mission with multiple entry probes and full radar mapping will be commissioned in the next decade.
I propose some other provisional names:
- Blobby bit
- Other blobby bit
- Fuzzy Stuff
- More Fuzzy stuff that looks like a little like a boob.
I think these give a better description of the so-called features.So...You're saying that the Hubble ain't exactly a "diffraction limited system"?
I'll take you to the ball, Barbara Manitee!!!
Just a little bit more resolution, and you'll be able to read the sign in the lower right corner that states: PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO TRESSPASSING.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I noticed one of the images superimposed with latitude and longitudes. Who decides (and how) where the 0 degree longitude is on astronomical bodies?
Where are the sirens?
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Hubble's not getting decommed. It'll be used until it fails, which without repairs will be 2007 by conservative estimates, or 2012 when it's replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope.
And NASA is pondering robotically repairing Hubble to save it from an early grave, without violating the self-imposed safety restrictions.
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
...if that's not good enough, they're sending a little something to land on Titan next January.
What? Who? Oh, you mean NASA sent(launched) this Cassini orbiter, right?
... but this is another source of fantastic pics that have been taken of various objects in our solar system
NASA Planetary Photojournal
Free Firefox news reader.
looking at titan, i can't help but wonder why sedna or pluto/charon might be considered a planet, a peer of earth, while something like titan is a mere moon.. it is phenomenal, it is a planet in mind, and deserves that recognition
additionally, jupiter is not a peer of earth either
just a thought, but don't you think it's time to rework the nomenclature of orbitting bodies? especially as we dsicover more extrasolar orbitting bodies, perhaps in multiple star systems, perhaps with radical orbital arrangements
here's my 2 cents:
gas giant: anything mostly gas
planet: anything round and mostly solid with an atmosphere
moon: anything solid and round but without an atmosphere
asteroid: anything not round
and all of these classifications are regardless of what they orbit, or their size (although the sizes tend to follow natural upper and lower bounds due to planetary evolution)
so in this nomenclature, mercury is a moon, while titan is a planet
additionally, you could do some sort of indication like: earth is a primary system planet, while titan is a secondary system planet... mercury would be a primary system moon
one day we may find teriary systems in other solar systems
am i crazy?
it just seems to me titan deserves to be our peer, while pluto/ charon does not
and it's not thinking earth-centric that is motivating me, it is simply thinking that as we discover more and more planetary bodies, we need a naming system, even if just shorthand, that is more realistic: titan is no mere moon, and sedna/ pluto-charon are just not planets
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Like the article says...
Some information, whatever the quality, is ALWAYS better than no information at all
I've never shoed a horse, but I once told a donkey to piss off!
Maybe they'll find the Ark of Noah there.
...Go to Saturn in the book, where Dave encountered the monolyth in between Titan and Saturn...?
I've never shoed a horse, but I once told a donkey to piss off!
He is WAY off!
This is clearly PhotoShop!
This could be useful as texture map addons to Celestia, along with textures from Planet Portal, etc...
:-)
Also, don't miss this site for your amateur astronomy needs.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Did you read the article? The images were aquired by the ESO's VLA Telescope. Which is an array of smaller telescopes. Bottom line is that this is Ground Based Observing.
I can also see that you know nothing or very little about astronomy. Atmospheric aberration is a big problem in ground based observing. There is really no solution yet, but there are solutions comming up soon (Infa-Red measurement corrections). The fact that surface DETAILS of a moon of a foreign planet were observed is quite amazing. I would wager that this experiment performed in space would provide images quite a bit crisper.
I don't understand why you want to drag the HST into this, other than to discredit it without reason. As for replacement, I ask, WHY? You don't throw away something that works for something new. You can keep both. I don't see why Americans think this way. Keep the HST and let research continue in parallel with newer telescopes.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
...the monolith -
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
Is it really newsworthy that someone takes an out of focus photo of their round blotchy moon and posts them on a website?
I've been told that the internet is full of that kind of stuff.
Million dollar sig.
First of all, these images are not taken by Hubble, but rather by a groundbased telescope. Secondly, Titan is small and far away, and thirdly, Titan is covered in a thick atmosphere. What we should do is not to complain that these pictures are bad, instead let us acknowledge the science and engineering that let us take pictures this good. But you're right, the next generation of spaceborn telescope is certainly something to look forward to!
And then I, for one, will welcome our European overlords!
Safety restrictions? With the same logic they would stop assembling the ISS, too. They use the shuttle for that... In fact, why not stop flying in space at all? You can't be safer than that. Furthermore, let us hide in the closet, so the monsters wont catch us. Seriously, where's the badass attitude? I mean I want spaceflight to be safe, but we can't be 100% safe and we must realize this. von Braun and Korolev, please come back! We need you. (I'm serious.)
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
...they're just hunks of rock or gas or whatever moving around according to the laws of physics. What we call them is just what we find most preferable. The universe couldn't care less
No. For a 3D space simulator you want visible-light images of the atmosphere, not radar surface images.
This voyager2 image is what you want.
What we should do is not to complain that these pictures are bad, instead let us acknowledge the science and engineering that let us take pictures this good.
As a quick comparison, here's a picture of Titan taken by Voyager 2. Note the complete absence of visible surface features - the atmosphere was too murky for them to be seen.
It's definitely some very impressive science and engineering which has let people peer through the atmosphere and take far more useful images of a distant moon - from a distance of ~1,600 million kilometres instead of ~4.5 million kilometres. And through Earth's turbulent, hazy atmosphere too.
Mandatory 667/670 Joke.
The restriction he was mentioning is that the Shuttle be able to use the ISS as a lifeboat in an emergency, not the other way around. Which it wouldn't be able to if it were aiming for the Hubble.
NO! Read my other post and get your names correct before you start going on about "knowing nothing about astronomy".
The VLA is the Very Large Array, a RADIO telescope run by the american National Radio Astronomy Observatory (or NRAO). It is certainly NOT run by ESO, which is the European Southern Observatory, the organisation that runs the 4 8m Very Large Telescope (VLT) telescopes in chile.
There is no other complete solution to avoid atmospheric turbulence (i.e. seeing and scintillation) other than going to space. A *partial* solution is to use deformable mirrors in an adaptive optics to attempt to correct the problem.
Even with multiple-conjugate adaptive optics (which use multiple laser guide stars to improve performance), you will NOT get diffraction-limited images on an 8m telescope.
Crisper images taken from space will only be better if the diffraction limit of hte telescope is better than what can be obtained by a ground-based system using AO or MCAO. Although nobody has a working MCAO system yet.
sorry, sounds a bit much like a rant, but might add some helpful info into the discussion...
The monolith was supposed to be on Japetus.
In vino vici
I realize it's not a true colour image. But still...
...into a neatly packaged feudal society.
Does this mean that earthlings would not be able sit at the same table as those inferior plutonians?
"That's no moon!"
I don't see how the Europeans can name the features, when Titan is clearly the property of the US.
I know this is a little offtopic, but please would someone explain WHY it is not possible for the shuttle to go to hubble and the ISS in a single mission ? Is it a fuel issue ?
The next generation Webb Telescope is not a direct replaecment for Hubble.
It is not steerable, so it cannot be used for solar system objects. Also, it is not designed to work in visual wavelengths, so kiss all those wonderful deep space images goodbye...
Better make sure that when they send the probe they include a hand crafted replacment part for Salo.
"Mr. President, we cannot allow a mineshaft gap!"
If you're talking about BSD, the drugs are shit.
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
Heh, "ball." Clever. Just once, I'd like to see an astronomer with a sense of humor -- they could've called it "cylinder seen from above," or "supersized singularity."
The others really do look like what they named them tough. But I wish they would've named the "Lying H" a "Lazy H" instead, to fit the cowboy standard.
c-hack.com |
I love it how when we're just talking about science (this story), fewer then 100 people post comments. But when you bring religion into it (the Mt. Ararat story), all the sudden everyone's an expert.
c-hack.com |
Small European lander piggybacked on orbiter hurtles towards atmosphere of distant body and automagically turns itself on at just the right moment.
Why am I not very confident?
Intellectual Property
Intellectual: of the mind
Property: that over which one has control
Yeah, Bush heard there were WMD's there!
Pretty much, the orbits of the two are such it would take more fuel than can be taken on any usefull mission, possibly more than can be taken.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
They promised years ago to take detailed photos of the moon landings down to less than a foot per pixel.
Still nothing!!!!
Yes I believe they are there, but perhaps there is MORE THERE perhaps.
I know you need some pretty small arc seconds to get high res on the moon, and it does MOVE fast in the sky. But its hardly hubble technology, it shouldnt be too hard.
Just point at the damn moon, if its too bright, take a photo of the DARK portions exposed for longer or use IR/UV.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The debate over the name planet is just as silly as the debate over the word "marriage." It just doesn't matter.
The joke is tired. The ideology is tired. You are of no value.
Some different, if not better, pics here: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/target/Titan
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
here
Or have they decided that yet? I know there was mention of helping determine where they will land, but I figure they already know the general area its going to hit at this point.. is it gonna be in the Lying H or the Dragon's Head? I figure they've got a better job of hitting liquid ocean if they shoot for the dog or the ball or whatever heh.
Anyone got any data on their expected insertion/landing point? I couldn't find any.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
These results are amazing. Notice that the thermal dark areas show clear embayment relationships to the brighter thermal areas. This is just what you would expect to see if the dark regions are liquid oceans and the bright regions are icy highlands.
an ill wind that blows no good
Couldn't this technology be used to effectively map volcanic movements of Venus? It does provide high resoution imaging through dense atmospheres. We could get some nice realtime imaging of Venusian volcanic flows.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
I hereby claim this moon in the name of Texaco.
If we can build a highway to get there, we'll be able to fill up and come back!
But did that map remind anyone else of Star Control II? A planet like that would be rich in what, actinides? I forget...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Wouldn't be nice if the "dragon's head" feature would be named Trogdor the Burninator http://www.homestarrunner.com/trogdor.html
didn't find any of the images suitable for a wallpaper image.. too bad, I love having space images as a backdrop
It's definitely some very impressive science and engineering which has let people peer through the atmosphere and take far more useful images of a distant moon - from a distance of ~1,600 million kilometres instead of ~4.5 million kilometres.
Well, science and engineering, sure, but mostly because Titan's atmosphere is transparent to near IR wavelengths, but not to visible light.
It is spelled "believe", not "beleive".
And Texaco is getting bought by Shell.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
It's OIL! -bbsguru aka GWB
I think I can see some Klingons!
It's Oil!
Expect the United States to declare war sometime within the next few years...