Gods speed little probe!

[phantom]

Well, as you may or may not know a very exciting time is soon at hand, the ESA's Huygens probe probe should be entering the atmosphe of Titan around 9am GMT (3am EST, I'm hoping my maths is right, heh).

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

Heres hoping for some good stuff :D

[Onions]

aliens!

[the funkmaster]

And when we're done with the aliens, the final horror: Onions!

[phantom]

bah, who let El Ginger into my thread!
I cast ye out ginger daemon! out! out! the power of phantom compells you!

[Ashen]

Or there find etched in the ice :-God Was ere!

Watched a interesting open university program on gigantic aquactic life in the cold seas, will be interesting to see if this reflects onto and if we find any kind of life there.

[Majestic]

http://space.com/missionlaunches/huygens_update_050113.html

Fingers crossed!

http://space.com/images/h_huygens_path_02.jpg

Here's an advanced MS Paint image by NASA's image enhancing experts ;)

[assassin]

interesting... i didn't know it was today

[Majestic]

It's tomorrow.

"If successful, the 705-pound (320-kilogram) Huygens will be the most distant human-made object ever to land on an alien world. It’s set to reach Titan early Jan. 14 EST. A final status briefing on the mission before tomorrow’s Titan rendezvous is set to begin today at 11:00 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) in ESA's spacecraft operations center in Darmstadt, Germany."

[assassin]

ah, so it's starting it's descent today....get there tomorrow

[Majestic]

19 Hours 47 minutes to be exact ;)

[Hotel2Tango]

The NASA monopoly needs breaking. Good luck ESA.

[D.Celt]

/me awaits the mysterious last minute malfunction.

[Majestic]

All should go pretty well I think. This time it's had the funding and isn't run by a guy who looks like he has fallen out of a barn.

[phantom]

hehe

well, they did have trouble on route, Cassini couldnt pick up signals from Huygens, but they fixed that little problem with some clever jiggery-pokery

[Ashen]

Also known as turning it on.

[Majestic]

Also known as turning it on.

It was nothing to do with them switching it on, or off for that matter. It was due to the failure of taking into account the effects of the Doppler shift.


Also,

A European probe is plummeting toward Saturn's moon Titan and expected to land on the mysterious moon, which has perplexed astronomers for years, in just a few hours.

Built by the European Space Agency (ESA), the 705-pound (320-kilogram) Huygens probe is expected to reach Titan at about 4:05 a.m. EST (0905 GMT) and beam data home via the NASA's Cassini orbiter

You can watch everything on NASA TV: http://space.com/missionlaunches/huygens_descent_comm_050114.html

[Majestic]

It landed safely and has been returning signals to earth for the last two hours!!! \o/ The first scientific data should reach the operstions base in Gernamy at about 3:21pm our time! :D

[assassin]

nice - i can't wait to see the first pictures

[megadaisy]

This is the page to keep an eye on - hopefully
http://www.esa.int

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/events/titana/index.cfm

[DM]

there is a program on bbc at 11:30 tonight which should show a lot more detail about the descent and perhaps a few pics \0/

[Nor]

woohooo pictures being sent back.

[megadaisy]

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/cassini_huygens/huygens_land/landing_01_H.jpg

[GroovYF]

Be nice to see one of those panorama shots like they made form the Mars photos

[megadaisy]

NASA TV is now broadcasting a program about Huygens

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

[Hotel2Tango]

BBC2 have a show on tonight:

11.30 BBC2 Tonight (Fri)

Stardate: Mission To Titan

[Nor]

Yeah definately one to watch.

[Majestic]

Shame it was crap :)

[Inertiaman]

http://web.mit.edu/bitbucket/Titan/titan_panorama_colored.jpg

This site is taking an utter hammering - just been farked. If anyone can mirror this just for this thread it'd be nice. At work so can't get to my ftp atm.

[assassin]

wow.. that looks amazing. very eerie looking place

[megadaisy]

Shame it was crap :)

I thought it was great - reminded me of Tomorrows World from when I was a kid.

Megadaisy

[Inertiaman]

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050120/D87O3NAO0.html

Poor bastard.

[phantom]

ouch :(

[Ashen]

I think i would have hit someone, poor gits all that work and someone forgets to turn it on.

[mr_o]

is this the bit they might recover?
bbc (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4193043.stm)
see Data Recovery

[Majestic]

Incase anyone has forgotten, Cassini is still returning fabulous data and Huygen's images are coming along nicely ;)

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm