The European part of the Cassini mission is about to enter the interesting phase! It separated on December 25th and is now on the way.
On January 14 the probe Huygens will enter as first spacecraft ever the atmosphere of Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. It will descent and land on the surface to transmit atmospheric and surface composition data at a rate of around 8kBit/s.

A small animation about the reentry of Huygens and the different phases of the mission:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygen...E4L3AR2E_0.html

Thanks for that Ariane...very interesting..Indeedy.

(Psst can someone pm me with an explanation, thank you please )

[popcorn] Just looked over it, could be some neat discoveries in store there although the exploration of the surface seems to be very limited in time, quote:

"To land on an ocean would probably mean better data from Huygens. Even if the probe lasted only a few minutes before sinking, it would at least stay in an upright position. Being the right way up is essential for sending the data back to the Cassini orbiter and to the scientists on Earth."

It would be good to learn more about that methane and determine whether live IS viable there- it maybe a long shot but not impossible, at any rate it could tell us more about what we may expect from exoplanets, who knows?. I suppose there's lots of crap to learn about weather patterns, geology, volcanism etc aswell:cat:, but even that may lead to something interesting. Those are my thought anyway.

But we're not going to get any images are we?

Hmmmmmm looks like you're right I assumed we would be getting similar images to cassini's.

No. As far as I know there is no camera aboard the probe. This is also due to the low data rate and limited time I guess. No room for nice images . Personally I would have liked a cam in it... but I see why they did not. There would not much to be seen... it is really dark up there.

I guess the thick atmos and distance from the sun precludes any possibility of getting anything at all, surely if there was any calculable chance it would have been economical to chance a lightweight cam. ;)As you said though they've only got a short time to get as much data back as possible and pretty pictures are pigs.

What do you:"probability of life elsewhere is practically zero" guys... make of this?, quote-ESA:

Mission objectives

Cassini-Huygens is designed to shed light on many of the unsolved mysteries arising from previous observations, such as:

do more complex organic compounds and ‘pre-biotic’ molecules exist on Titan?

You want to bet there is life?
The relation of our quote and your statement are not yet clear to me.

Every spacecam is lightweight...

No I DONT want to bet there is life on Titan- I think it could possibly be viable, but very unlikely given Titans surface temperature for one thing. All I was trying to say to the "no-it-alls" was that the ESA have listed a huygen mission directive to findout whether "more complex organic compounds and ‘pre-biotic’ molecules exist on Titan"- Some guys here(on this site) said it was basically impossible for organic compounds to arrange themselves into pre-biotic molecules a second time- the fact that it happened here on earth (they said) was the biggest fluke ever with practically no chance of ever reoccurring.............I just wanted to know what come back they would make on this "mission directive"(let me know if you still dont follow:) )


Yes I agree. Didn't you understand what I was saying here either- I was making the point that they(NASA/ESA scientist) must have calculated that a cam must have been pretty damn/completely useless for them not to even have put one on board(it would have added a miniscule amount to the 2 or so metric tonnes payload) just encase there was enough light on titan(afterall we've never been through the atmosphere so it had to be an educated guess to say- "no way there is enough light!"[even with a slow upload rate they maybe could have squeezed in a couple of jpegs if only just to see a pretty horizon shot )Its irrelevant anyway- I think they know what they are doing so I accept fully that images were not viable, Capeesh?.

And that was who? :confused:
The bottleneck is not the mass or the use but the data rate as I said...

Well I have to correct what I said earlier... there is kind of a camera system onboard, but it seems more suited to analyse the atmosphere than to provide nice pictures though it will also record in the visible spectrum (512 x 254 pixel only). Well we shall see...

bemused and out of my deapth...leaving now... :confused:

I cant remember,,,,,,,,,,,,,, couple of the high school kids who read something about the difficulty of organic compounds randomly forming into amino acids then inturn into proteins(which is true), but I say as always the probability of life elsewhere is incalculable because we dont know all the variables(and why are our top scientists looking for these molecules(right this month even) when highschool kids says its impossible? ).

Yes I understand that as I said.


Where did you see that?. I interpreted it as being in the non-visible spectrum. I think they could have made it more clearer, I take it this is the baby you mean- quote ESA site:

Huygens instruments

Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) can take images and make spectral measurements using sensors covering a wide spectral range. A few hundred metres before impact, the instrument will switch on its lamp in order to acquire spectra of the surface material.


and yes time will tell even if they dont.

Impossibility in human terms is a very low probability you know... and life is something other than organic molecules. Even in far cold gas clouds there are traces of organic molecules as 'organic' is not really means 'organs'.
Such are quite common (in terms of rare molecules...!), yes even more than initially though.


Well yes, I took a closer look at the imager and saw that it is also in the visible light... but it is more a measurement than a picture I guess.

No impossibility has a probability of 0, no?.

Yes I know that!, and I didn't say otherwise (you're misunderstanding me maybe)- I know the only requirement for a molecule to be organic is for said molecule to contain CARBON(basic organic chemistry,yes?). But ESA are looking for "COMPLEX organic and PREBIOTIC molecules" not just the methane alkane(a simple organic compound). Read 1/3 way down the page under mission objectives- 10th black dot :

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygen...MD2HHZTD_0.html






yep it does look that way.

Only in theory, not in reality.


Nor did I say you said...

Hmmmmm so what probability would you give impossibility in reality?- because if you have PROVEN something to be impossible, that something by definition has to have probability of 0.

I'm not arguing with you, all I'm saying is if you define impossible correctly it has a 0% chance of occuring-but here lies our problem- things that have been said to be impossible have indeed occured(this means the original definition had to be incorrect).Personally I think its unscientific to define anything as impossible- even if something has been proven to not occur once in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion cases that is not scientifically impossible.

OK :cool: bud

If you ask...
x = probability
impossibility = lim 1/x
x->0

Ok?


No it is not. We USE the term impossible for something we do not think will ever happen in any way that we will perceive it. It is neither unscientifical or incorrect, it is just human. If you want to talk 100% correct you have to stick to talking in equations without any adjective in between. I could not do that and I doubt you could.
You have to learn what people mean if they talk, that is why I somtimes seem to discuss about definitions and meanings of words, because that is the core of conflict between all you try to communicate to others. It is not because I want to sound more or less intelligent.

OK so we agree thats its about definition in the real world I already said it was(my definition is it has a 0% chance of ever occuring. but as you say you cant interpret others as meaning the same.), anyway in the artificial world of math impossible has a probability of 0.......you seem to agree to that, dont you?.

Anyway we seem to be in agreement so can we move back to the original topic or are you still not satisfied and want to fight it out in equations?. :laugh:

Did you understand the equation?


Only if you insist...