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Posted by: Nirgal Apr 13 2005, 12:29 AM

originally from the mars/MER forum:

Very low resolution indeed.. the raw image has only 384x192 pixels
And I too didn't like the ESA colors at all



So I did this quick one... not quite that easy because now we
almost have too *few* pixels to play with, but nevertheless ..



Don't have an account on the Titan board yet ...
will post the image there too

Posted by: Decepticon Apr 13 2005, 12:32 AM

What is this titan board you speak of?


The image looks great by the way.

Posted by: Nirgal Apr 13 2005, 12:42 AM

just a misunderstanding of paxdan's post that directed me
from the Mars forum over here. I thought he ment another external forum ..

maybe I give a try to also colorize the other Hygens images
from the descent imager ...
although the poor quality of the raw images in discouraging.

Posted by: Decepticon Apr 13 2005, 02:32 AM

The pixels drive me nuts.

Posted by: paxdan Apr 13 2005, 08:10 AM

Ha ha ha yep!

Thanks Nirgal, much appreciated.

Posted by: odave Apr 13 2005, 12:28 PM

Nice job, Nirgal!

Your image brings out some grayish patches in the middle that are washed out in the ESA image. Also, I wonder if the whitish areas at the bottom are the vapors/fog kicked up by the hot probe resting on the cold surface. It may be interesting to do some of the other surface frames to see if the white stuff moves around.

As far as the image quality goes, I suppose low-res is better than no-res

I can remember watching Cosmos as a kid, hearing Sagan talk about Titan and its mysteries - it was quite something to watch those Huygens images coming in. But now I want more - next probe, please!!!

Posted by: John M. Dollan Apr 14 2005, 11:25 PM

Just out of curiosity, what is that long and winding black line in the image? It looks almost like a cord of some sort, and I didn't see it in any of the original images. An artifact of your coloration process?

...John...

Posted by: Nirgal Apr 14 2005, 11:52 PM

I altered only the colors and contrast, otherwise left every pixel intact
the feature its also visible in the original image (if you look very closely),
albeit very week contrast.

to me it definitely looks like a kind of flow-feature ... a little rill of fluid in the
mud perhaps ...

Posted by: Decepticon Apr 15 2005, 01:16 AM

I agree 100%. That looks like a flow like feature.

Posted by: John M. Dollan Apr 15 2005, 10:43 PM

Okay, there I see it (yeah, I'm needing glasses).

What kind of scale are we seeing here, then? If it is a flow feature, would it be something akin to water leaking out of a hose, are is it rather larger than that?

I'm a Titan novice here, so apologies for what are likely rather silly questions.

...John...

Posted by: centsworth_II Apr 16 2005, 02:15 AM

The rocks (composed of of water ice) scattered about the surface are said to be grapefruit-sized on average.

Posted by: paxdan Apr 16 2005, 08:52 AM

Here is a link to an http://search.esa.int:8766/queryIG.html?col=mmg&ht=0&qp=&qs=&qc=&pw=100%25&ws=1&la=en&si=0&fs=&op0=%2B&fl0=ContentType%3A&ty0=p&tx0=Image&op1=%2B&fl1=category%3A&ty1=p&tx1=&op2=%2B&fl2=showcase%3A&ty2=p&tx2=SEMK0R1VQUD&qt=&ex=&rq=0&oq=&searchType=general&qm=0&ql=a&tipo=Image&showcase=Cassini-Huygens&st=17&nh=1&lk=3&rf=3 showing scale.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 16 2005, 12:42 PM

The "long winding black line" is a shallow, curving trench in the surface of the mud behind one rock -- certainly produced by the wake of liquid flowing past that rock. (A second, smaller rock just to the left and above the first one has exactly the same kind of wake, curving in exactly the same direction.) Martin Tomasko has already said that the relative scarcity of rocks (or, more accurately, pebbles) in the middle region of the image is probably a sign that it was indeed a flow channel, and I presume those sediment wakes behind the two rocks confirm this.

(Keep in mind the small scale we're looking at -- the camera was only about 35 cm above Titan's surface; the near edge of the "flow channel" was only about 1 meter from Huygens, and its far edge is about 1.5 meters away than that.)

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 16 2005, 01:00 PM

Odave: "I wonder if the whitish areas at the bottom are the vapors/fog kicked up by the hot probe resting on the cold surface. It may be interesting to do some of the other surface frames to see if the white stuff moves around."

I suspect not -- I think what you're looking at is just that part of the surface more brightly illuminated by Huygens' lamp (which, you'll note, completely blotted out all surface details in the post-landing images from the lower two cameras, except for a couple of pebbles vaguely visible in the MRI images).

Posted by: dvandorn Apr 18 2005, 07:16 AM

I'm not *positive* that fluid is all that's carving these flow features.

There is an animated gif of a number of Huygens surface images run together that shows *something* flowing along some of these flow channels. (I downloaded the gif and didn't keep the link, but since it's a 5MB gif, I can't attach it here anymore... *sigh*...) I suspect the "ghosts" flowing through these channels are whisps of fog (for want of a better term) that are being drawn to the updraft being caused by the relatively superheated Huygens -- but they *do* follow the flow channels.

In a 1.5B atmosphere of exotic composition, isn't it possible that the air itself (especially Titan's hazy, aerosol-rich air) flows as much as blows along the surface, and creates surface features that look like liquid-carved features to those of us who live in a 1B atmosphere on a liquid-dominated surface?

Remember, on Earth (and even on Mars) there are dramatic microclimatological changes that occur in the last few centimeters above a planetary surface. There can be startling shifts in air temperature and pressure in surface-hugging layers of air only a few meters, or even a few centimeters, thick.

I think we could be seeing surface effects in the Huygens images that are unique to the Titanian environment and caused by a combination of occasional fluid fill and constant, slow, heavy, "moisture-laden" air flow.

-the other Doug

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 18 2005, 04:29 PM

Given a long enough time, maybe -- but don't forget that we're virtually certain that the mudflat Huygens landed in was a drainage area for flows of genuine liquid, whether the channels leading into it were carved by long-lived gentle trickles (which they might have been if some of them were due to geothermal springs lf liquid methane oozing up from below), or by periodic but brief cloudbursts. Wind currents -- whether they were carrying fog along or not -- would not have carved such narrow and branching channels.

Under the circumstances, whether those light-colored patches actually are mist or not (and I supose that some of them might have been, since Huygens was unquestionably warming the methane-soaked landing surface near it), the odds that the surface wakes trailing behind those rocks are actually liquid-carved seem very high.