Titan Images Seem To Hold Water

Titan Images Seem To Hold Water (washingtonpost.com)
4/5/05 7:59 PM
Sign In | Register Now
SEARCH:
News
PRINT EDITION | Subscribe to
Top 20 E-mailed Articles
Web
Advertisement
washingtonpost.com > Nation > Special Reports > Science > Space Exploration
Titan Images Seem To Hold Water
Print This Article
E-Mail This Article
Nation
Probe Suggests Moon Has Sludgy Surface
On the Site
Updated 7:45 p.m. ET
• In Ariz., 'Minutemen' Start
Border Patrols
• Big-Game Hunting Brings
Big Tax Breaks
• Historic Voyager Mission
May Lose Its Funding
• New Nuclear Warhead
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page A03
DARMSTADT, Germany, Jan. 15 -- It is a desperately cold,
forbidding landscape, where water ice becomes fist-size chunks of
stone, but scientists said Saturday that Saturn's remote moon Titan may
have one thing found nowhere else in the solar system besides Earth -lakes and rivers.
Proposed to Congress
• L.A. Times Wins Pulitzer for
Public Service
"I'm just staggered by the level of detail," said European Space Agency
science chief David Southwood, examining images of Titan captured
by the agency's Huygens space probe just a day earlier. "It's the only
other place where there might be lakes and rivers -- right now."
RSS NEWS FEEDS
Top News
Space Exploration
What is RSS? | All RSS Feeds
Southwood was one of scores of
exhausted but exultant scientists
who took a first glance at the
near-flawless data returned by
Huygens as it parachuted 789
miles through Titan's smoggy
atmosphere and came to rest on a
rock-strewn plain bathed in
orange twilight.
All six of Huygens's instruments
functioned perfectly, and
although a software glitch
stymied transmission of data
about Titan's winds, 18 Earthbased radio telescopes on four
continents were able to
eavesdrop on the probe's signals
and will collaborate to reproduce
the experiment.
As a result, said Huygens project
manager Jean-Pierre Lebreton,
"we have received a very good
data set that will allow us to
realize all our goals."
Scientists have long coveted the
opportunity to see Titan up close,
but until Huygens's spectacular
voyage, they have been
frustrated by a cloud of methanelaced nitrogen that obscures the
moon's surface.
The nitrogen, the hydrocarbons
and the presence of water ice
have transformed Titan -- the
second largest moon in the solar
system -- into a cold-storage
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11740-2005Jan15.html
An image from the Huygens probe during its descent on Titan
shows a boundary between light and dark areas. The white streaks
could indicate "ground fog." The probe drifted over a plateau, center,
and headed to its landing site, at right. (ESA via AP)
_____A Celebrated Landing_____
Video: Space
officials' hopes were
buoyed after the
probe continued to
transmit data well past
its scheduled landing
time.
•
_____Cassini-Huygens Sites_____
• ESA Cassini-Huygens Mission
• NASA's Cassini-Huygens site
FEATURED ADVERTISER LINKS
_____Seeing Saturn_____
•
Saturn has reached its closest
point to Earth and is shining at its
brightest with its rings tilted at 23
degrees, an excellent angle for viewing.
_____From The Post_____
• On to a Moon of Saturn -- and the
Unknown
Summary: Probe Lands on Titan
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Unlimited Calls to US & Canada $24.99/month
"The Case Against Mutual Funds" - Free Report!
NASCAR Tickets on Sale Now
FREE legal consultation, reviewed within 24-48 hrs.
Diabetes Defeated
$160,000 Mortgage for Under $785/Month!
Washington Wizards tickets, Orioles tickets, U2
For College Grads, Win an iPod
LendingTree.com - Mortgage Loans and Home Equity
From Associated Press at 9:38 AM
THE MISSION: The European Space
Agency's Huygens probe entered the
atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan in a
mission to provide clues to how life
arose on Earth.
THE PLAN: The probe carries
instruments to explore what Titan's
atmosphere is made of and to find out
whether it has cold seas of liquid
methane and ethane.
THE BACKERS: The mission, a project
of NASA, ESA and the Italian space
Page 1 of 2
Titan Images Seem To Hold Water (washingtonpost.com)
4/5/05 7:59 PM
laboratory mimicking many of
the conditions that probably
existed on Earth before life
evolved.
Forcing Titan to surrender its
secrets was a principal goal
when NASA and the European
and Italian space agencies
launched the Cassini-Huygens
spacecraft in 1997 on a voyage
of exploration to Saturn, its rings
and seven of its 33 known
moons.
agency, was launched on Oct. 15, 1997,
from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to study
Saturn, its spectacular rings and many
moons.
_____Free E-mail Newsletters_____
• Today's Headlines & Columnists
See a Sample | Sign Up Now
• Daily Politics News & Analysis
See a Sample | Sign Up Now
• Federal Insider
See a Sample | Sign Up Now
• Breaking News Alerts
See a Sample | Sign Up Now
Cassini, with Huygens riding piggyback, went into orbit around Saturn
last June 30, and on Christmas Eve sent the 700-pound probe on a
three-week transit to Titan that culminated in a two-hour, 27-minute
parachute drop to the moon's frigid surface. By early afternoon Friday,
Huygens had relayed all of its information to Cassini for retransmission
to the European Space Operations Centre in this Frankfurt suburb.
On Saturday, scientists stressed that months or even years will elapse
before researchers can thoroughly digest Huygens's mountain of data,
but a vague sketch of this remote wilderness began to emerge.
The methane haze, which gives Titan a green-blue cast at higher
altitudes, turns the sky bright orange at ground level, spectrographic
data taken by Huygens showed. Surface temperatures were 291
degrees below zero Fahrenheit, as predicted, with a low temperature of
333 degrees below zero recorded during the descent.
The imaging team presented its first panoramic view of Titan's surface
Saturday, showing a broad expanse of what looked like coastline, crags
and sludgy, glacier-like deposits that could pass for a harbor in Earth's
polar reaches.
"It's almost impossible to resist the interpretation that this is some kind
of drainage channel," imaging team leader Marty Tomasko told
reporters, pointing to a fjord-like gorge running through the middle of
the picture.
But, he said later, "you have to be careful, because we're biased by the
things we see on Earth." The "sea" in the panorama may not be liquid,
but instead a mushy hydrocarbon slush the color and consistency of
wet clay, he said.
CONTINUED
Print This Article
E-Mail This Article
12
Next >
Permission to Republish
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Advertisement
SEARCH:
News
Web
Top 20 E-mailed Articles
© Copyright 1996-2005 The Washington Post Company | User Agreement and Privacy Policy | Rights and Permissions | Home
washingtonpost.com: Contact Us | About Us | Work at washingtonpost.com | Advertise | Media Center | Site Index | Site Map | Archives
E-mail Newsletters | RSS Feeds | Wireless Access | Our headlines on your site | Make Us Your Homepage | mywashingtonpost.com
The Washington Post: Subscribe | Subscriber Services | Advertise | Electronic Edition | Online Photo Store | The Washington Post Store
The Washington Post Company: Information | Other Post Co. Websites
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11740-2005Jan15.html
Page 2 of 2
Titan Images Seem To Hold Water (washingtonpost.com)
4/5/05 7:57 PM
Sign In | Register Now
SEARCH:
News
PRINT EDITION | Subscribe to
Top 20 E-mailed Articles
Web by
Advertisement
washingtonpost.com > Nation > Special Reports > Science > Space Exploration
< Back
Print This Article
Page 2 of 2
E-Mail This Article
Titan Images Seem To Hold Water
Nation
On the Site
Updated 4:45 a.m. ET
• The Long Road Out of Lake
Charles
• A Struggle for Rights
• The Red Sea
• Seamounts Offer Marine Life
Peaks of Viands
• Army Contests Rumsfeld
Bid on Occupation
RSS NEWS FEEDS
Top News
Space Exploration
What is RSS? | All RSS Feeds
This view jibed with information collected by the "penetrometer,"
which showed the probe had punched through a six-inch overlying
crust before coming to a final stop. The resistance was consistent with
"wet sand or clay," said John Zarnecki, the surface science team leader.
Tomasko said he suspected that Huygens's resting place would turn out
to be a dark spot in the panorama, and the stony landscape, which he
had earlier described as littered with "ice boulders," was probably a
mix of wet clay and fist-size ice stones, which had appeared larger in
the first close-up image.
An early Friday photo
suggesting a treacly lava flow fit
neatly into Saturday's panorama,
suggesting a glacier-like wall of
sludge moving toward the
"coastline." A white band
framing the junction of coast and
ocean could indicate some sort of
"ground fog," Tomasko noted.
All of this suggested that Titan's
surface is a shifting, oozing
combination of gravel, stones,
hydrocarbon sludge and,
possibly, ethane lakes or ponds.
"There's weather," Southwood
said. "It's unlike any other place
except Earth." There was,
however, no lightning or
thunder, as Huygens's
microphone picked up little but
white noise.
Both Tomasko and the
University of Michigan's Sushil
Atreya, a member of the gas
chromatography team, confirmed
that the methane smog of the
upper atmosphere dissipated a bit
less than 12 miles above Titan's
surface. Atreya said, however,
that methane concentrations
surged again at ground level,
indicating a possible methane
reservoir on the surface.
Southwood said the European
Space Agency would conduct an
investigation of why Huygens's
computers failed to get one of the
two transmission channels to turn
on, stressing that the mishap had
nothing to do with Cassini or
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11740-2005Jan15_2.html
FEATURED ADVERTISER LINKS
•
•
•
Vioxx, Personal Injury Lawyers; get help now
•
•
•
Re-Grow your own hair. FREE Hair Transplant.
•
•
Super Bowl Tickets, Maryland Terps Tickets
Drink Less Water
Learn 5 "Secret" Vanguard funds to buy-FREE!
$160,000 Mortgage for Under $735/Month!
Get up to $200 from Citibank - Get details
30 COMMISSION-FREE trades. Now at Ameritrade.
An image from the Huygens probe during its descent on Titan
shows a boundary between light and dark areas. The white streaks
could indicate "ground fog." The probe drifted over a plateau, center,
and headed to its landing site, at right. (Esa/nasa/university Of
Arizona Via AP)
_____A Celebrated Landing_____
Video: Space
officials' hopes were
buoyed after the
probe continued to
transmit data well past
its scheduled landing
time.
•
_____Cassini-Huygens Sites_____
• ESA Cassini-Huygens Mission
• NASA's Cassini-Huygens site
_____Seeing Saturn_____
Saturn has reached its closest
point to Earth and is shining at its
brightest with its rings tilted at 23
degrees, an excellent angle for viewing.
_____From The Post_____
• On to a Moon of Saturn -- and the
Unknown
•
Summary: Probe Lands on Titan
From Associated Press at 9:38 AM
THE MISSION: The European Space
Agency's Huygens probe entered the
atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan in a
mission to provide clues to how life
arose on Earth.
THE PLAN: The probe carries
instruments to explore what Titan's
atmosphere is made of and to find out
whether it has cold seas of liquid
methane and ethane.
THE BACKERS: The mission, a project
of NASA, ESA and the Italian space
agency, was launched on Oct. 15, 1997,
from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to study
Saturn, its spectacular rings and many
moons.
Page 1 of 2
Titan Images Seem To Hold Water (washingtonpost.com)
4/5/05 7:57 PM
NASA.
_____Free E-mail Newsletters_____
The channel's failure caused the
• Today's Headlines & Columnists
See a Sample | Sign Up Now
loss of all data from the wind
• Daily Politics News & Analysis
experiment, but everything else
See a Sample | Sign Up Now
was duplicated on the
• Federal Insider
functioning channel. Tomasko's
See a Sample | Sign Up Now
• Breaking News Alerts
team had tried to double the
See a Sample | Sign Up Now
payoff by sending a second set
of 350 bonus images on the bad
channel, but lost them because of the communications problem.
The wind experiment was saved, however, when astronomers working
with 18 radio telescopes in Australia, China, Japan, the United States
and Europe captured Huygens's transmission signal and held it until the
probe's batteries died hours later, passing the torch around the world as
the Earth rotated.
"We are going to recover the scientific value for this experiment in
full," said Leonid Gurvits, who managed the collaboration. He
acknowledged later, however, that "the amount of data is enormous,"
and the job "will take weeks."
< Back 1 2
Print This Article
E-Mail This Article
Permission to Republish
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Advertisement
SEARCH:
News
Web by
Top 20 E-mailed Articles
© Copyright 1996-2005 The Washington Post Company | User Agreement and Privacy Policy | Rights and Permissions | Home
washingtonpost.com: Contact Us | About Us | Work at washingtonpost.com | Advertise | Media Center | Site Index | Site Map | Archives
E-mail Newsletters | RSS Feeds | Wireless Access | Our headlines on your site | Make Us Your Homepage | mywashingtonpost.com
The Washington Post: Subscribe | Subscriber Services | Advertise | Electronic Edition | Online Photo Store
The Washington Post Company: Information | Other Post Co. Websites
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11740-2005Jan15_2.html
Page 2 of 2