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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."
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
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.
Great! Send him!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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.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?
... but this is another source of fantastic pics that have been taken of various objects in our solar system
NASA Planetary Photojournal
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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!
NASA's Cassini orbiter is carrying ESA's Huygens probe as far as Saturn, and then releasing it to drop down through Titan's atmosphere.
Huygens should give us the "ground truth" to help interpretation of all the remote sensing.
Not long now - the code is nearly 10 years old...
Regards
(PM - Huygens on-board software)
...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!
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
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!
...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
For god's sake, can we all please get our acronyms correct! This is important for astronomers, since we use a lot of them.
ESA = European Space Agency (space based missions, including a share of hubble)
ESO = European Southern Observatory (i.e. Astronomers and telescopes)
VLA = the Very Large Array, a ***RADIO*** telescope run by the NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory). NRAO and VLA are run by americans. The VLA is in soccorro, new mexico.
VLT = the Very Large Telescope. 4 8m ***OPTICAL*** telescopes in chile. Using NACO, which is an adaptive-optics systems, you can partially get around atmospheric problems and take high-resolution images.
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.
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...
Saw a cool show at the planetarium on the up coming Cassini, Huygens mission. One of the better planetarium shows I've seen.
Cassini will circle Saturn for a long time, 4 years I think, and then if it still works they will send it on a risky mission. My favorite was sending it through the large Cassini Gap in Saturn's rings. Think of the images it could collect of the rings at that range!
Then there is the ever popluar suiside mission into planet's dense center. Sending an orbiter hurling into the planet's atmosphere to be crushed while collecting data seems soooo 1990's.
My friend and I have a bet on the Huygens mission. Will the surface of Titan look more exciting than the surface of Mars? or about equal? hmmm.
Shick's Law: There is no problem a good miracle can't solve.
"That's no moon!"
I don't see how the Europeans can name the features, when Titan is clearly the property of the US.
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!"
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!
Huygens will take over 2,000 pictures (again, I don't remember the exact number) from the air of the surface of Titan. At that point in the show, I turned to my friend wispering, '2,000 desktops.' He called me a nerd.
It does have a parachute, 2-3 depending on how you count. Now surviving the landing... thats a different story.
Shick's Law: There is no problem a good miracle can't solve.