Coriolis
01-16-2005, 09:45 AM
DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) —
New, refined pictures from Saturn's moon Titan released Saturday show a pale orange surface covered by a thin haze of methane and what appears to be a methane sea complete with islands and a mist-shrouded coastline.
Space officials worked through the night to sharpen the new photos taken by the space probe Huygens, which snapped the images Friday as it plunged through Titan's atmosphere before landing by parachute on the surface.
Many scientists at the European Space Agency center in Darmstadt, Germany, looked tired from their overnight work but were still clearly elated about the successful arrival of data from Huygens the day before — a major triumph for the European space program.
"The instruments performed brilliantly," said John Zarnecki, in charge of the surface instruments. "We can't find a single missing data frame. The link and the quality of the data was absolutely superb."
Officials played back sound gathered from Huygens' microphone at the surface — a whooshing noise they did not identify. But the center of attention was the pictures.
One shot taken from an altitude of 10 miles showed dark lines that suggested stream beds carved by liquid flowing into a dark area suspected to be a sea of liquid methane — with light areas in the dark that could be islands.
"It is almost impossible to resist speculating that the flat dark material is some kind of drainage channel, that we are seeing some kind of a shoreline," said scientist Marty Tomasko from the University of Arizona, head of the camera team. "We still don't know if it has liquid in it."
Titan's notorious haze — which has kept astronomers from getting a better picture through telescopes — is obvious in the two refined images shown Saturday.
An image taken on the surface shows chunks of what scientists say looks like water ice scattered over an orange surface overcast by methane haze. On Friday, the chunks were described as boulder-sized, but overnight examination showed they are much smaller and simply look big because they are close to Huygens' camera.
Deep shadows and depressions around the chunks suggest they could have been surrounded by liquid at one time, scientists said.
Titan is the only moon in the solar system known to have a significant atmosphere. Rich in nitrogen and containing about 6% methane, its atmosphere is believed to be 1 1/2-times thicker than Earth's.
http://saturn.esa.int
New, refined pictures from Saturn's moon Titan released Saturday show a pale orange surface covered by a thin haze of methane and what appears to be a methane sea complete with islands and a mist-shrouded coastline.
Space officials worked through the night to sharpen the new photos taken by the space probe Huygens, which snapped the images Friday as it plunged through Titan's atmosphere before landing by parachute on the surface.
Many scientists at the European Space Agency center in Darmstadt, Germany, looked tired from their overnight work but were still clearly elated about the successful arrival of data from Huygens the day before — a major triumph for the European space program.
"The instruments performed brilliantly," said John Zarnecki, in charge of the surface instruments. "We can't find a single missing data frame. The link and the quality of the data was absolutely superb."
Officials played back sound gathered from Huygens' microphone at the surface — a whooshing noise they did not identify. But the center of attention was the pictures.
One shot taken from an altitude of 10 miles showed dark lines that suggested stream beds carved by liquid flowing into a dark area suspected to be a sea of liquid methane — with light areas in the dark that could be islands.
"It is almost impossible to resist speculating that the flat dark material is some kind of drainage channel, that we are seeing some kind of a shoreline," said scientist Marty Tomasko from the University of Arizona, head of the camera team. "We still don't know if it has liquid in it."
Titan's notorious haze — which has kept astronomers from getting a better picture through telescopes — is obvious in the two refined images shown Saturday.
An image taken on the surface shows chunks of what scientists say looks like water ice scattered over an orange surface overcast by methane haze. On Friday, the chunks were described as boulder-sized, but overnight examination showed they are much smaller and simply look big because they are close to Huygens' camera.
Deep shadows and depressions around the chunks suggest they could have been surrounded by liquid at one time, scientists said.
Titan is the only moon in the solar system known to have a significant atmosphere. Rich in nitrogen and containing about 6% methane, its atmosphere is believed to be 1 1/2-times thicker than Earth's.
http://saturn.esa.int