Friday, January 14, 2005

Cassini, Huygens:

First image of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan from the Huygens probe. Prominent are the dendritic drainage patterns that appear to head off to the upper left, and what appears to be a remnant crater in the center of the scene. The contrast between the light left and darker right side is not yet understood - perhaps even a shoreline with some islands, but the center of the scene is definitely a solid surface, upon which the probe appears to have survived at least two hours, transmitting data to Cassini above.

Image is a screen grab from NASA TV transmitting from ESA HQ in Darmstadt, Germany. Altitude of lander about 16.2 km, leading to a pixel size of about 40 meters. The quality is so bad that I am reminded of the Mariner Mercury shots... expect better quality soon. Posted by Hello

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