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Space

Imagining Titan 25

Posted by michael from the to-boldly-go dept.
Neil Halelamien writes "Recently the Planetary Society released the winning entries of their Huygens Art Contest. The contest challenged contestants to create artwork depicting what they imagine the ESA's Huygens probe will find when it descends to Titan's surface. 435 people from 35 countries entered the contest, and several of the winning images look like they would make great desktop backgrounds. The Huygens encounter with Titan is due for January 14 (Friday), but it looks like there isn't any live coverage planned of this exciting event."
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Imagining Titan More

Imagining Titan

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  • we'll get an actual image of Saturn rising over the horizon. It would grace the desktops of a million geeks.

    What kind of cameras does Huygens have? What are the odds of an actual picture like that being taken?
    • we'll get an actual image of Saturn rising over the horizon.

      Well, Titan is tidally locked, so Saturn does not rise or set. It just hangs in the sky. If NASA picked a spot on the Saturn-facing side of the planet, then it might be possible to get Saturn in frame, if NASA didn't pick such a spot, then forget it.
    • Actually you would not be able to see Saturn through Titan's atmosphere. Apparently only one person knew that, Ron Miller:

      planetary.org/saturn/contest/ron_miller_1024.jpg

    • The Huygens probe's landing site will be near 10.9 S, 169 E (191 W). (There is uncertainty as to the exact landing site since atmospheric winds that could blow the probe around are not well known.) This is on the side of Titan facing away from Saturn, so there will be no poetic images (or any other kind of image) taken of Saturn by Huygens.

      Click here [arizona.edu] for information about the cameras.

  • Orientation of Saturn (Score:3, Informative)

    by oni ( 41625 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:11PM (#11327041) Homepage
    Judging by the orientation of Saturn's rings, all of those images show the probe landing near one of Titan's poles. I thought it was going to land closer to the equator - in that case, Saturn's rings would be straight up and down.

    • Re:Orientation of Saturn (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:58PM (#11327708) Journal
      I'm guessing the people who made those pictures are artists first and scientists second. Most of the pictures you see from NASA or in books of Saturn show the rings oriented nearly horizontal and tilted slightly towards the point of view. It isn't suprising that art depicting Saturn would do much the same. If you wanted to hit them up for scientific realism, Saturn shouldn't be visible in the pictures anyway, since as others have posted, the probe is going to enter on the far side of Titan from Saturn, and the atmosphere would obsucre it anyway.
    • Judging by the orientation of Saturn's rings, all of those images show the probe landing near one of Titan's poles. I thought it was going to land closer to the equator - in that case, Saturn's rings would be straight up and down.

      Even if landing near the equator, it is still possible to have Saturn low in the sky, in essence a "Saturn set", just like one can still see a moon-set at the equator here. I don't know the orientation of this particular mission, but being near the equator alone does not rule o
  • At least one of the entries used this as a title but I didn't see any great danes in the picture? I'm still looking forward to Friday.

    Obscure Kurt Vonnegut reference

  • It's unfortunate there won't be any, but if they did have live coverage, it wouldn't be very impressive for all but the most hardcore geeks.

    I remember watching the coverage from the Mars landings, and they're not that exciting. They might get some attention during the first few minutes, but by an hour into it when the most exciting thing you heard was, "Attitude adjustment in five minutes..." and then "Attitude adjustment green." after five minutes of silence, your audience is gone. I wonder if the people
    • I believe that one of the reasons for not having live coverage is to be able to screen anything unexplainable from the public until they've had time to process it.

      Imagine if we got another 'Face on Mars' controversy or some streak in a frame of one of the pictures that came back.

      It's almost the same thing as delaying live TV shows in case another wardrobe malfunction [msn.com] occurs...

      Delaying coverage just makes sense though personally I'd like to see live coverage...

      • I believe that one of the reasons for not having live coverage is to be able to screen anything unexplainable from the public until they've had time to process it....Imagine if we got another 'Face on Mars' controversy or...another wardrobe malfunction occurs...

        If a Titanian woman bears all 7 of her green breasts, and they keep that from us, I am gonna be awfully pissed.

        It would really be cool if they saw a sign that read, "Fuck Earth!". If they sensor that I will kick them in the Euroballs.
    • You must've gotten on early and left. I tried to get on in the middle (just got out of class) and they had maxed out the allowed connections on the web stream. It's too bad they don't have the bandwidth or memory to handle video, because that would, at least for a short bit, be really interesting.

  • Home Schooled (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bob_Robertson ( 454888 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @06:12PM (#11327923) Homepage
    The grand prize winner is home-schooled. Another demonstration of what getting out of the government prison camps can do.

    Brava, Miss Tylor. And many thanks to the rest of the entrants, I have a couple new wallpapers!

    Bob-
  • "The Huygens encounter with Titan is due for January 14 (Friday), but it looks like there isn't any live coverage planned of this exciting event."

    Ummm..wrong... Try the Discovery Science channel on 1/14/05 @ 9pm EST

    .....mod this up yours.....

  • The cg one (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iamlucky13 ( 795185 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:10PM (#11328664)
    I don't like to compare computer modeled art to handmade, but the one that held my attention the most was Titan Sunset, which showed the sun behind Saturn's rings look out over a Titan shoreline. Totally unrealistic I know, but imagine if it actually were possible to look up in the morning and see Saturn hanging overhead with it's rings shining in the sunbeam's.

  • Live coverage on NASA TV on Friday (Score:3, Informative)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:12PM (#11328693) Journal
    Hi, I'm the person who made the submission. Since making the submission, it's come to my attention that there will indeed be at least some sort of live coverage on NASA TV -- I suspect the article I linked to may be in error.

    From the NASA TV schedule [nasa.gov]:

    January 14, Friday
    3 a.m. - 3:30 a.m. - Live Coverage and Commentary "Cassini Turns Towards Titan - Interruption of Radio Contact" - JPL/ESA
    5 a.m. - 6 a.m. - Live Coverage and Commentary "The Huygens Probe Enters the Atmosphere of Titan" - JPL/ESA
    7:30 a.m. - 8 a.m. - ESA News Briefing "Mission Status" - JPL/ESA
    8:30 a.m. - 9:15 a.m. - ESA Commentary on Huygens Probe Mission - JPL/ESA (Mission Coverage)
    10 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. - ESA Commentary "Cassini Turns Back to Earth - Data Transmission Begins" - JPL/ESA
    11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. - Huygens Probe News Briefing (will confirm if we are receiving data from Huygens via relay by Cassini)
    1 p.m. - NASA Update with Sean O'Keefe - KSC
    5 p.m. - 6 p.m. - ESA Commentary and "Presentation of First Triplet Image of/data from Titan" - JPL/ESA
  • [I just got this in my email]

    Planetary Society Event:
    Get Ready for a New Moon Landing!

    Huygens Arrives at Titan, sponsored by The Planetary Society

    Date: Thursday, January 13, 2005

    Time: 6:30-9:30 p.m.

    Description: Join The Planetary Society the night before Huygens' historic plunge into Titan's atmosphere for a look at that mission as well as a Voyager retrospective, a lively discussion of Saturn's place in the popular imagination, a Cassini overview and a live update from Huygens mission control in Germa

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