Huygens Descent Onto Titan Countdown

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I am very interested to learn what it underneath the orange clouds of Titan once and for all...

Rocks, smelly gases and 'goo'

[Provost Harrison]

"Goo" is interesting

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by reds4ever


Rocks, smelly gases and 'goo'

this is baically all we have on Earth's surface too.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Geronimo


this is baically all we have on Earth's surface too.

Then why in Gods name did we send a probe all the way to look at some more....?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by booger

2) Huygens has a slight design flaw. Its batteries really suck. We will only get 2 hours worth of data (maybe)out of a 40 million dollar machine.

hear hear!

This Huygens probe is the size of a freaken VW Beetle. it could have easily accomodated a 60lb RTG that would have given it power to operate on the surface for years just like the smaller viking landers on mars did. Cassini will be making passes near titan for years to come so if an RTG had been placed on Huygens we would be able to upload and transmit countless additional hours of observation from the thing. I can't believe what a wasted chance it was to equip such a large and heavy lander with a power supply equivalent to a car battery. It's really sad.

-edit whoah, I guess I can't blame the Euro's anymore. JPL just added my question about huygens lack of an RTG (in my recognisably inarticulate prose) to their Huygens lander FAQ and it would appear that a short term power supply was the plan from the start

here's a link to my question and JPL's response

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by reds4ever


Then why in Gods name did we send a probe all the way to look at some more....?

We earthlings like a variety of rocks and smelly gasses and goo I guess.

[Odin]

What is annoying me is that astronomers keep saying that Titan's atmosphere is like early earth's, no it isn't. Geologists don't think the early atmosphere was nearly as reducing as we thought back when the Urey-Miller experiment was conducted. The early atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen sulfide; not methane, ammoinia, and hydrogen.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Odin
What is annoying me is that astronomers keep saying that Titan's atmosphere is like early earth's, no it isn't. Geologists don't think the early atmosphere was nearly as reducing as we thought back when the Urey-Miller experiment was conducted. The early atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen sulfide; not methane, ammoinia, and hydrogen.

that's just nitpicking. Titans atmosphere is by far the most like the early earths of all presently known atmospheres. Certainly it is more like it than earth's current oxidizing atmosphere is.

[Unspeakable Horror]

Then at 3:00 a.m. EST tomorrow (8:00 a.m. GMT), live coverage will begin and continue throughout Huygens' descent and the reception of the first chunks of data, concluding with another press briefing.

I´ll be sleeping at 5am

[Ben Kenobi]

It's also a wee colder.

Methane as a liquid is a bit difficult to do on Earth.

[floppy_lobster]

I have to admit if the ESA got this thing right with the huygens. Its a cosmic hole in one. Its all in there hands now.


Comon ESA.... 5 hours to go...

[Winston]

Yep, here's hoping everything goes well.

And that maybe all of us here on Earth will be able to understand the Solar System a little bit better with the data we're about to receive in the hours to come.

[The Mad Monk]

ESA!

ESA!

ESA!

[OzzyKP]

NASA

I wanna see some Rutan probes

[Winston]

Now it's exactly 2 hours until Huygens will enter Titan's athmosphere.

NASA TV Webcast has started it's full day broadcast of ESA TV, and there's a lot of interesting background info being given on the mission and the basic nature of the Saturn system.

It's kind of strange to hear people reporting on an ongoing space mission in British-English, but I suspect I'll get over it in an hour or so.

Go Huygens!