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Amateurs Beat Space Agencies To Titan Pictures

Posted by timothy on from the decentralized dept.

loconet writes "Nature.com is reporting that a group of enthusiastic amateurs managed to process raw images of Titan from the Huygens probe faster that any of the giant space agencies in charge of the mission. Terragen, a freeware program that converts the basic brightness data in aerial pictures into a topographical map, to generate the ground-level vista was used."

2 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. $16,000 toilet seats by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    Where did the hobbiests get the money for all the $16,000 toilet seats and stuff that those NASA people have proven is needed to do useful space research?

    The joy of big organisations: Of the thousands of people in NASA, only a few are actually doing any research, most are doing administration. I guess that's why they're called NAS Administration nd not NAS Research.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  2. Re:Faster == better ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    A key paragraph. Does fater always means better? Before we jump on the NASA/ESA bashing bandwagon, we should remember that both are renowned scientific institutions that gain reputation not by doing everything as fast as possible, but as accurately and precisely as possible.

    You mean like imperial-metric conversions, right?