The Forgotten Huygens Experiment

jdray writes "An experiment onboard the Huygens probe didn't run as planned because someone forgot to turn it on. The team lead for the experiment has put eighteen years of his life into the project, just to watch it not happen after a seven year ride to its destination on Titan."

Comments

Nothing was lost, all data is safe

[thesp]

The article isn't quite correct. A fuller description would take a while to type, so I summarise:

Two redundant radio channels were used to get data from the lander to the orbiter, which relays the data to earth. The signal for the orbiter to start listening on the high-sensitivity channel, channel A, was never given. The data was transmitted redundantly on both channels, except for images and the output of the Doppler wind speed experiment. Fortunately, all was not lost, as scientists donated radio telescope time around the earth to search directly for the A signal, despite it not being relayed via the orbiter. Thanks to this increase in sensitivity, the data acquired was good enough to fulfill all objectives of all experiments.

So everyone can relax and get one with the analysis...

Latest results from analysis

[zrq]

The Huygens team held a press conference this morning and presented some of the results of their analysis so far.

The first scientific assessments of Huygens' data were presented during a press conference at ESA head office in Paris on 21 January.

Results include:

• Geological evidence for precipitation, erosion, mechanical abrasion and other fluvial activity says that the physical processes shaping Titan are much the same as those shaping Earth
• Huygens' data provide strong evidence for liquids flowing on Titan. However, the fluid involved is methane.
• ... while many of Earth's familiar geophysical processes occur on Titan, the chemistry involved is quite different. Instead of liquid water, Titan has liquid methane. Instead of silicate rocks, Titan has frozen water ice. Instead of dirt, Titan has hydrocarbon particles settling out of the atmosphere, and instead of lava, Titanian volcanoes spew very cold ice ...

Re:D'oh

[SamSim]

Roughly five to ten O's have been omitted. Homer's trademark expression was voice actor Dan Castellaneta's interpretation "[ANNOYED GRUNT]" (which is how "D'oh!" has always been written in scripts for Simpsons episodes). It's based on the "Dooooooooooh!" from the Laurel and Hardy routines, only shortened considerably. Source