Huygens Probe Lands on Titan 686
WillDraven writes "CNN, NASA and the ESA are reporting that the Huygens space probe has entered the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan after traveling 2.2 billion miles. Pictures from the moon's surface should be available sometime this afternoon" according to the NASA TV schedule. What we know so far is that Huygens landed successfully and sent at least the carrier signal from the surface to Cassini for 90+ minutes, more than expected, and that Cassini has successfully repointed at the Earth and begun relaying the data it received, beginning with test packets. Huygens now sits on Titan, silent forever, while we wait to see whether or how much valuable data Cassini obtained and can send back. Update: 01/14 17:20 GMT by M : So far: they report zero lost packets in the transmission, but one of the two independent data-collection systems is apparently giving some problems. Update: 01/14 21:40 GMT by J : The news is pretty much all good: a very successful mission. Expect to see many photos within hours, but for now apparently only three have been released. Ice blocks or rolling stones -- let the debates begin!
First Data Recieved via Cassini! (Score:5, Funny)
01000001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100010 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100001
Re:First Data Recieved via Cassini! (Score:5, Funny)
01000110 01101001 01110010 01110011 01110100 00100000 01010000 01101111 01110011 01110100 00100001
as long as we don't go to ALL the moons (Score:5, Funny)
attempt no landings there.
Re:First Data Recieved via Cassini! (Score:2, Funny)
Could be worse (Score:4, Funny)
Re:First Data Recieved via Cassini! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This all might not have happened (stupid hippie (Score:5, Funny)
Where's my plastic bubble?
Re:Regarding the permanent silence of Huygens... (Score:5, Funny)
The trip to Titan took three weeks, and there was at least some electrical activity on the probe that whole time (I know it had a timer set to "wake it up" for the descent). Then the probe kicked into high gear for the descent, running all its systems off the batteries.
It was expected to go dead sooner than it did, but the lost data probably wouldn't have told us much -- after it had been sitting on the surface for a few minutes, it had probably already reported everything interesting.
The lost Huygens trasmissions:
Yep, still cold.
My batteries are getting kinda low.
Still cold. This rock is hurting my ass.
God damned this rock. It's poking right into my radiothermal heater.
Holy shit it's cold here.
Batteries about to give out. Hey, is anybody listening?
Heeeellllo, anybody there? Cassini? Can you hear me?
Great, I'm going to die with a fucking rock in my ass and nobody listening to me.
Re:For the record... (Score:5, Funny)
artists rendering (Score:3, Funny)
Yes (Score:4, Funny)
Re:First Data Recieved via Cassini! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Could be worse (Score:2, Funny)
Ouch! That's gotta hurt!
Re:Regarding the permanent silence of Huygens... (Score:3, Funny)
Jim Morrison lived on Jupiter?
Re:Pronounce Huygens (Score:2, Funny)
Re:First Data Recieved via Cassini! (Score:4, Funny)
Silent forever? (Score:3, Funny)
No, it really says (Score:3, Funny)
"Ovaltine? A crummy commercial? Son of a b**ch!"
The Europeans Have Arrived (Score:2, Funny)
Let's get these out of the way (Score:2, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our new Titanian overlords.
Wow! Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Huygenses!
Any transmission problems are clearly Micro$oft's fault. Damn Windows! The ESA should have used Linux!
Any transmission problems are clearly NASA's screw-up, forgetting to use the Metric system.
Let's see, what else have I forgotten...
Something That *Might* Be A Tentacle Appears... (Score:5, Funny)
Plutonium is very delicate - used in stink bombs (Score:1, Funny)
Plutonium has an atomic number of 94 and an atomic weight of 244. It is one of the most delicate elements in the periodic table. The only thing (up to now) that has saved it from becoming extinct is that it is difficult to locate.
The plutonium atom is so delicate that a fall (in Earth's gravity) of a distance of 10cm onto a hard surface will cause a plutonium atom to be broken into 3 iron atoms, one sulphur atom, and a number of neutrons. Plutonium is commonly found in the stink bombs that kids throw in the hallway at school.
Re:Let's get these out of the way (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot these, you insensitive clod!
Message from Huygens: "Thats no moon!"
But does Huygens run Linux?
Huygens photographs new lifeform - a shark with a friggin laser..
Saturn, All your moon are belong to us!
Re:A fortune in stuff out there... (Score:1, Funny)
Oh, I'm sure there is a barrier around the "landing site" deep within a Hollywood movie studio. It's guarded by special troops and black helicopters, that's why nobody has ever seen it.
Re:Regarding the permanent silence of Huygens... (Score:3, Funny)
Funny, how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does.
Wearly I sit here, pain and misery my only companions.
I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
Re:This all might not have happened (stupid hippie (Score:2, Funny)
I heard that it is the main ingredient of vomit and it makes you pee and sweat!
Re:Planetary Society's blogging from mission contr (Score:3, Funny)
OMG we are collapsing the wavefunctions!!! (Score:2, Funny)
wavefunctions are collapsing across Titan
what if there are sentient beings that exist in uncollapsed clods of eigenstates???
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!