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Titan Photos and Sounds
ahsile writes "NASA and the ESA have released the first images
from Titan. The ESA also has available sounds from the surface." Reader ZZip writes: "Apparently a bunch of enthusiasts has compiled the first mosaics from the raw data delivered by the Huygens probe. Meanwhile space.com has more coverage and pictures from NASA/ESA." Say a silent thank-you to the persistent troubleshooters of the world, without whom none of this would be possible.
Until I see a monolith!
This is another way of starting a sig with this and ending it with that.
They never said Titan was a sea. They said it *might* have sea(s), and that if it did, Huygens might land in it, but it also has a solid surface, and Huygens could just as well land on that instead. Plus, some of those pictures look very much like seashores. This for example.
If Martians lobbed a probe at the Earth, they should also expect it to hit sea, considering that it covers 3/4 of the planet's surface. That doesn't stop some meteorites from landing on, er, land.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
They still haven't released the final sequence. They're still trying to figure out that one.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I think the whole titan mission is fascinating, but they really need to release some higher quality pictures.
Have some patience people. We are mostly seeing raw dumps with quicky contrast enhancement. It will take a while before it is put together and cleaned up.
I would note that Huygens was not designed to be a high-resolution photographic mission. Many were not even sure if the surface would be visable when launched. Plus, such an atmospheric desent probe cannot have directional antennas (other than maybe "not down"), reducing the bandwidth. For example, the mars rovers only send high-res images when they are sitting still and focusing their narrow-angle directional antennas at specific locations in the sky for the receivers to pick up (either at earth dishes or in Mars orbit).
Table-ized A.I.
Perhaps it is a stupid question, by why do the pictures look so light? What I mean is, from that distance, I didn't think the Sun was very bright. Is the light in the photographs natural, or is it enhanced? Or, am I being influenced by sci-fi movies that portray the Sun as being so small way out there?
Proverbs 21:19
I was a little saddened after seeing the pictures and getting all stoked for ultra-high-res pictures like what Spirit and Opportunity are sending back, but I don't think it's in the cards.
The uplink from Huygens to Cassini was only 8kb (don't remember if it was bit or bytes, in any case, not a wide channel) and there was only about a 2 hour window to transfer to data before the batteries on Huygens went dead. I consider 2 hours pretty remarkable given the extreme conditions is going in to and the fact that the batteries have been waiting for seven years. The technology also dates to at least 1997, probably earlier (to provide time to check for reliability against radiation fun from space).
Supposedly there are some 350 or so pictures, so at 32Kb a piece (at least what the ESA is putting up), I don't think we're going to see anything much higher.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
How will we know unless we look?
You want to study the Earth; fine, study it. Lots of people are. But it's hard to understand anything if you've only got a single example. Looking at Titan, and indeed, Mars, Venus, or anywhere else, gives us more information about Earth. If we see similarities, we can ask ourselves why there are similarities given the different environments; if there are differences, we study them learn exactly what is different, and why. Either way, our total understanding of the universe goes up.
No one is seriously thinking of colonising Titan, ever. It is -200 degrees below zero on the surface. It offers no benefits over other planetary bodies.
Actually, that's completely wrong. Titan is ideal real estate for an off-world colony. It's perfectly located for easy access to orbiting resources; Saturn and its rings. It has enough gravity to be comfortable. It has huge amounts of water ice, from which oxygen can be easily generated. The atmosphere is a nitrogen-methane mix, which turns out to be almost perfect as propellent for nuclear rockets (when they get off the ground). The atmosphere will also protect the surface from Saturn's lethal radiation.
Maybe when we have to tech to actually consider colonising planets, we can send probes out then for that purpose. Right now, it is a waste of money.
We have the tech. We could set up a base right now, if we could get there. (Development of a decent propulsion system is ongoing, nuclear rockets should be along soon.) As for being a waste of money... the entire Cassini mission cost 3.3 billion dollars. The war in Iraq is spending about that much every 20 days. Cassini's cheap.
Every once in awhile, I am reminded how amazing and exciting it is to live at a time like this. Think about it, we're disappointed (and I agree, I would like to see higher res photos as well) about the quality of sounds and pictures FROM ANOTHER FREAKING PLANET! (moon, whatever).
Seriously, how cool is it we can take that for granted? These images of an alien world, with detail, not some blurry photo from space, are easily available on our computers. I mean, about a hundred years ago, people were amazed by electric lights, and powered aviation had just started. From Kitty Hawk to Titan in a hundred years (+/-)? Unfuckingbelievable. Life is good.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
And all some people can do is bitch about the resolution of the photographs. That's the trouble with science and engineering nowadays: people do utterly amazing stuff and the general public doesn't know it's amazing any more.
Well, I'm going to admit it: when this 54 year old scientist turned systems implementer first read that Huyghens/Cassini had fulfilled its mission, there were tears in my eyes. This is a great human achievement. Don't let the ignorant knock it.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
So, why do we keep sending only B&W cameras on these things?
Because that's just how cameras (even film) work. Your $100 webcam only senses brightness, not color, just like the cameras on Huygens and the Mars rovers. With the rovers, they have filters which only allow certain frequencies (colors) to hit the sensor, just like your digicam/webcam/film camera. The difference is the filters on the consumer camera are fixed on the CCD (or film), while NASA's are in front of the lens, so you can mix and match.
If your goal is *only* to make pretty pictures, sure, send up a digicam. If your goal is science, you use interchangeable filters, or just a single, fixed filter across all pixels.
This is not only better science, but also higher resolution. Your digicam (say, 4MP), has 2million green pixels, 1 million red, and 1 million blue (in one common configuration, there are other mixes and colors), and the raw image is processed to simulate 4 million RGB pixels. But using a 4MP sensor with filters over the lens, you get all 4 million pixels at the selected wavelength. This provides more information, and science is all about information.