Cassini's Robot Lab Successfully Separates

toomanyairmiles writes "The BBC has an article indicating NASA's Cassini probe has successfully launched its robot lab on its three-week journey into the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. 'Such is the chemistry and temperature (-180C) on Titan that scientists suspect it may harbour lakes, even great seas, of methane or ethane.' Seemingly we have very little idea of what we'll find there: 'Even Cassini's remarkable instruments have struggled to get at the facts. Scientists can see dark and bright regions on the surface, but quite what they represent no one is really sure.'"

Comments

Hooray for NASA/ESA collaboration

[ikewillis]

For those who don't know, the Hyugens probe bound for Titan was developed by the EU's Space Agency. It will provide us with the first glimpses below Titan's cloudy surface, and was carried by NASA's Cassini probe.

It's wonderful to see such collaboration between the ESA and NASA, and I hope we continue to see such efforts in the future.

Re:Hooray for NASA/ESA collaboration

[Anonymous Coward]

While we're educating - the EU does not have a space agency. The European Space Agency is it's own (or it's member nations...), and not a part of the EU. A few countries who are not in the EU are in ESA (hell, even Canada is - though they're a little special :). I still find the collaboration wonderful though - the world would be a better place with some more of that...

Re:I Wanna See Rain!

[NoseBag]

In Arizona, its called Virga i.e. rain that never reaches the ground.

Its actually quite neat to see in the distance. You can see the downpour falling, usually from under a nice dark thundercloud (uh, where else?), and then it kinda gets fuzzy and vague, and then it just....isn't. The "isn't" boundary also moves up and down slowly - due to air currents and such, I guess. Its quite peaceful to observe.