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Posted by: volcanopele Jan 12 2005, 09:45 PM

With just a couple more days to go until Huygens reaches Titan, I'd thought I would gauge your thoughts on what kind of terrain you think Huygens will land in. My guess would be cryovolcanic plains covered in goo.

Edit: I meant you, not they. What do YOU think Huygens will land in?

Posted by: OWW Jan 12 2005, 09:53 PM

What will it look like? Here is an art contest of the planetary society:
http://planetary.org/saturn/artcontest.html

Personally I think this one is closest to my imagination:
http://planetary.org/saturn/contest/artur_rataj.html

Namely, a almost featureless plain of icy fluff. Maybe with some dark splotches here and there.

Posted by: pioneer Jan 12 2005, 09:57 PM

I'm thinking the terrain will be mostly covered with tholin. Underneath, the surface would look kind of like Ganymede with grooves. We might see some areas with ice sticking out in high places along with a small lake or two of methane or ethane.

The lighting would be a little dark, but not so dark the lamp would be needed to take visible light pictures.

During its descent, Huygens will also encounter some fairly strong winds.

It will probably land on a solid surface covered with tholin.

Posted by: volcanopele Jan 12 2005, 10:32 PM

Here are my favorites, both in terms of accuracy {IMHO} and my personal taste in art. For space art, I don't like impressionism, post-modern, or other "junk" art forms.

http://planetary.org/saturn/contest/rodrigo_belote.html
http://planetary.org/saturn/contest/bryce_jacobs.html
http://planetary.org/saturn/contest/frank_hettick.html

Why do people insist on showing Saturn's rings????

Posted by: OWW Jan 12 2005, 11:33 PM

Volcano, that first picture is NOT very accurate... Titan is in the same plane as the rings so you can never see the rings at such an angle. ( But hey, it's Art right? )

Posted by: volcanopele Jan 12 2005, 11:38 PM

I agree. Thus my complaint in my post

Posted by: alan Jan 12 2005, 11:44 PM

Because without the rings it just doesn't look like Saturn.
I understand that Saturn's rings would be edge-on and not visible but isn't Saturn below the horizon from Huygen's landing site?

Posted by: djellison Jan 12 2005, 11:47 PM

I say something quite hard and icey - but with regions of sludge locally

Doug

Posted by: volcanopele Jan 12 2005, 11:49 PM

LOL!!!!! Yep, it would be below the horizon. The Huygens landing site is almost smack-dab in the middle of the anti-Saturnian hemisphere

Posted by: volcanopele Jan 13 2005, 01:52 AM

Woohoo!!! I got a DISR team member to "adopt" me for a day so I can look at DISR images on Friday. Of course I am supposed to get this person soda and coffee when they need it, but otherwise

Posted by: ilbasso Jan 13 2005, 02:35 AM

Whoa, are you ever a lucky guy!!!!

There's nothing like being in the room when the good stuff comes down. Closest I ever got was when I was a teenager, working as an intern at the Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC. I was watching one of the Apollo 16 moonwalks on a small black and white TV in the museum library when Michael Collins, Apollo XI CMP and then-director of the museum, came in. He sat down and watched it with me for about half an hour. It was so great to be able to ask him just about any question I could think of about the Moon and the mission!

Posted by: gpurcell Jan 13 2005, 06:18 AM

My predictions:

Only the final set of images will show detail of landforms...the earlier sets will be little but haze.

Icy surface with some rocks sticking out. No liquid.

Lander will fail on contact with ground.

Posted by: OWW Jan 13 2005, 09:03 AM

That's the spirit...!

I think it should be the other way around. Only the high altitude images will show detail and the final set wil show a smooth surface without details. Much like a snowcovered landscape.
As for the landing, I doubt it will be a solid CLUNK. After billions of years of organic goo blowing around there must be SOME layer of soft stuff on the surface.
Contact lost after touchdown? Maybe, but only because it sinks in the dust...

Posted by: djellison Jan 13 2005, 09:07 AM

After billions of years of organic goo ( well, people and spiders and bacteria and fish and plankton and penguins and rhinos and turtles and birds and things ) - you could say the same about earth - yet land on the Derbyshire Dales and it'd be a hard clunk

Doug

Posted by: OWW Jan 13 2005, 09:26 AM

Point taken. But then the Earth didn't have a global smog layer worse than the most polluted city for over 4 billion years...

Posted by: YesRushGen Jan 13 2005, 01:25 PM

I predict landing on a solid surface, and that Cassini will record Huygen's signal until it disappears over the horizon.

Posted by: remcook Jan 13 2005, 02:11 PM

my guess is a fluffy, flat surface. I hope huygens will survive impact but I don't think so.

Posted by: Decepticon Jan 13 2005, 02:19 PM

I think that Titan & Triton will be very close.

I just think that Titan my have some type of Gyser type events going.

Posted by: Bill Harris Jan 13 2005, 02:50 PM

But Titan does not have an agressive bipolar solvent in abundance nor is it at a temperature of 273 degK, which promotes weathering, dissolution and erosion.

I'm as imaginative as the next primate but I can't comprehend what we'll see. I'd side with a cloudy Triton in the large-scale, but don't have a clue about the surface details.

We'll see tomorrow....

--Bill

Posted by: OWW Jan 13 2005, 03:26 PM

No watererosion is another argument in favor of a slushcovered surface. When the smoggy stuff finally settles out of the sky it will not move again for a Long Time.

Posted by: DEChengst Jan 13 2005, 05:09 PM

I predict it will find a monolith. Ofcourse that's too shocking to release to the world, so ESA and NASA will declare the probe lost.

Posted by: tedstryk Jan 13 2005, 08:16 PM

What would be so shocking? Unexpected, yes, but shocking?

Posted by: OWW Jan 13 2005, 08:28 PM

It's shocking in the sense that the monolith somehow transported itself from its commonly known present location, Iapetus...

Posted by: volcanopele Jan 13 2005, 09:55 PM

I suspect that there is a layer a few inches thick of gunk overlying my volcanic plains

Posted by: volcanopele Jan 13 2005, 11:05 PM

obviously we now have the "Battleship" style lottery board, but I my hope is that Huygens lands very close to a bright/dark boundary, between the dark terrain and the intermediate albedo "islands". then we cna get a good idea on what the "islands" look like and what the dark terrain looks like in one shot. At least in the 3 km altitude panorama.

Posted by: Sunspot Jan 13 2005, 11:22 PM

With large radio telescopes on Earth listening for Huygens signal during the decent, are we likely to get an indication from them before Cassini on how things have gone with the mission?

Posted by: NorbertGiesinger Jan 14 2005, 12:26 AM

YES at 10:45 or 11:08 GMT up to the minute detection by VLBI on the progress of descent is planned (ESA TV)