What Huygens Saw On Titan - New Image Processing | Video

[Stephen Retired]

Published on 14 Jan 2015

For the probe landing’s 10th anniversary, a new sequence has been rendered from Huygens’ Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) data. The craft landed on Saturn’s largest moon on 14 Jan 2005. -- Landing Animation: http://goo.gl/6t6XuA

Yes, I'm a space nerd!

[abakan]

1. That was great! Thanks

I am too...

[MrMickeysMom]

2. Gosh, that's so cool...

Thanks, and welcome to DU, Stephen…

I bow to your nerdness on this subject…

[Jack Rabbit]

3. K/R

[Plucketeer]

4. Nice!

Yes, if only our species spent more time focused on the universe around us instead of killing and enslaving one another.

[alfredo]

5. That's great. Thanks and welcome to DU

[BumRushDaShow]

6. K&R

Aside from this remarkable imagery, I am still floored at the size of our own moon compared to our planet - notably when seen in the opening sequence.

[Enthusiast]

7. Very cool!

[2naSalit]

8. That's really interesting!

Thanks for posting and welcome to DU!

[SoapBox]

9. Wow.

[edhopper]

10. That was phenomenal

Things like this give this ol' atheist that feeling of the sublime.

[FailureToCommunicate]

11. Welcome to DU! And thanks for that facinating clip.

[VWolf]

12. Very soon

you'll be able to download GoogleTitan and do this on your own

[Stargazer09]

13. That was awesome!

Thank you for sharing it!

And welcome to DU.

[LongTomH]

14. I'm a space nerd too! Thanks for posting!!!

Oh yes, welcome to DU. Please post as often as you like!

[zanana1]

15. I don't know much about space...

I'm so intrigued by this! When I see photos of hundreds of planets, I feel so hopeful. I believe that we're not alone.

[ctsnowman]

16. Thanks for the post.

[leveymg]

17. Any shots of Jupiter from Titan's surface? Correction: Saturn

Last edited Mon Jan 19, 2015, 03:10 PM - Edit history (1)

[eppur_se_muova]

20. That seems unlikely -- but Saturn should look impressive, if the haze doesn't obscure it. nt

[leveymg]

23. Oops. Glad someone was paying attention.

Question: is Titan on a different orbital plane from the rings? Seems like a hazardous environment for a moon.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Most of the satellites, except for a few very small "shepherd moons", are very far out.

Since, within the Roche limit, tidal forces overwhelm the gravitational forces that might otherwise hold the satellite together, no satellite can gravitationally coalesce out of smaller particles within that limit. Indeed, almost all known planetary rings are located within their Roche limit, Saturn's E-Ring and Phoebe ring being notable exceptions. They could either be remnants from the planet's proto-planetary accretion disc that failed to coalesce into moonlets, or conversely have formed when a moon passed within its Roche limit and broke apart.

Roche limit

[leveymg]

27. Interesting. Didn't realize Saturn was so much less dense than Jupiter.

And not nearly as dense as am I about such things.

[eppur_se_muova]

28. Saturn is the only planet that would float like a boat. :) nt

[leveymg]

29. It would make a cool pool toy.

[byronius]

18. Yeah, this was an awesome post. Grateful am I.

[drm604]

19. Fascinating

I love this kind of stuff. I've never seen this before. Thank you so much for posting it!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. These are the kinds of worlds we will eventually be walking on....

In the mean time, have fun with this.

Most people know that if you have google earth installed it's possible to select the moon or mars. What a lot of people DON'T know is the flight simulator works on those worlds too. You can fly an F16 through Valles Marineris.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

22. Neato mosquito!!

Very cool! I love NASA. Too bad the rest of the world has taken over space exploration. Neil deGrasse Tyson rails constantly about underfunding NASA, for good reason.

And that supercollider they were supposed to build in Waxahachie? The idiots in Congress defunded it. So where is the cutting edge particle physics happening? CERN in Switzerland.

/RANT OVER

[stonecutter357]

24. K&R!

[Duckhunter935]

26. awesome, thanks

[polynomial]

30. Really good video...

Absolutely great video, being a scientific type enjoying the wonder of American technology, we need more of an understanding about where we Humans live.

Especially to understand that simple notion of water that we take for granite is actually very scarce in the solar system.

The NASA website has some tutorials however my studies search the Internet for Image processing techniques such as that pictured in the video.

The Mathematics called Matrix Transformations Fourier transforms in electronic engineering make that imagery possible. I know its asking a lot however, young men and women should know how these systems work before they leave high school.

It’s not easy to find a simple way electronics changes an image that can be translated and sent so well for such distances. It’s incredible and our science community should be proud and NASA should share it. It’s our tax money…isn’t it…

[Half-Century Man]

31. Very good clip.

Gotta love science.