Jeffrey Bennett
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • Curriculum Vita
    • Personal Statement
    • Donation Program
  • BOOKS
  • EVENTS
    • Elementary School Visits
    • Middle/High School Visits
    • Teacher Presentations/Workshops
    • College Math Colloquia
    • College Science Colloquia
    • Corporate Audiences
    • Public Lectures
  • MODEL SOLAR SYSTEMS
    • Colorado Scale Model Solar System
    • Voyage Scale Model Solar System
  • RESOURCES
  • BLOG
  • CONTACT
  • Home
  • Space News
  • Titan Success!

Titan Success!

January 14, 2005 / JeffreyBennett / Space News

My apologies for violating my usual rule of sending e-mails only on rare occasions, but this is just too exciting for anyone to miss: The Huygens probe landed successfully on Titan this morning!
Check out the “raw images” already posted at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html. Scientists are only just beginning to try to understand what we are seeing, and better pictures will be available soon as image processing techniques are applied. Nevertheless…

  • The surface photo shows what appears to be chunks of ice strewn around (remember that the temperature is 300 degrees below zero Fahrenheit). If you’re not sufficiently impressed, remember that you are looking at the surface of a world that is nearly a billion miles away.
  • Even more intriguing, look at the photo taken during descent. To get a sense of what you are looking at, imagine you are looking at the surface from a high-flying airplane. What does it look like to you? Sure looks to me like river/creek beds and possibly a lake over on the right.. I can hardly wait to hear what the experts say…

What to watch for in coming days and weeks: The Huygens probe had a short battery life, so all the data has been collected and transmitted. Now it’s a matter of processing all the data and interpreting it. The probe’s couple hours of operation on Titan will probably keep many scientists busy for years to come…

Jeff

Comments are closed.

Most Popular Blog Posts

Blog Archives

Blog Categories

  • China/Fang Lizhi (2)
  • Climate/Global Warming Science (9)
  • Jeff in the Media (71)
    • News Features (21)
    • Other Fun Stuff (6)
    • Radio/Podcast Interviews (16)
    • Videos (30)
      • About Textbooks (3)
      • Featured Videos (13)
      • School Presentations (3)
      • TV Interviews (11)
  • Math/Stats (9)
  • Most Popular (5)
  • Op/Ed Pieces (32)
  • Relativity (15)
  • Resources for Teachers (31)
  • Space News (67)
  • Story Time From Space (9)
  • Uncategorized (1)

Recent Blog Posts

  • TV and Podcast Interviews for 2023/24 Solar Eclipses September 14, 2022
  • Time to Get Ready for the Incredible USA Solar Eclipses of 2023 and 2024! September 14, 2022
  • Planets in the Pre-Dawn Sky! (See them now or wait until 2040) June 21, 2022
  • Lunar Eclipse Sunday Night! Plus The Milky Way’s Black Hole, Countdown to the 2023 and 2024 Solar Eclipses, School Visits, Books… May 12, 2022
  • JWST Launch, New Scale Model Solar System, More (Dec. 21, 2021) December 21, 2021
  • Mars Helicopter Ingenuity! Plus Free, Earth Week Events for Kids and Adults April 12, 2021
  • Live from the International Space Station! January 22, 2021
  • Astronomical Sky Events! + New Climate Curriculum December 5, 2020
  • ISS Event POSTPONED September 19, 2020
  • Join Us Monday for a Live Event from the International Space Station September 16, 2020
  • Positive News to Share: Climate Action, Mars, Comet & Meteor Shower August 1, 2020
  • Comet NEOWISE now Visible! July 11, 2020
  • Tomorrow’s Solar Eclipse June 20, 2020
  • Interpreting Antibody Test Results, Scale of the Universe, and More April 26, 2020
  • Coronavirus Risks and Lessons March 14, 2020
Jeffrey Bennett | Website by: Saffron Design | All Rights Reserved | © 2025