[X] My Assistant

[Decepticon]

2005-Apr-16 Titan close flyby & gravity assist (T5)
(best view to date) 950 From http://www.planetary.org/saturn/cassini_tour.html


Another look at the same hemisphere as in T4 ( My favorite so far, so much more interesting )

From above hours before closest approach. http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...porbs=1&brite=1

[volcanopele]

More info:

My T5 post on my blog - http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/2005/04/ti...flyby-info.html
JPL's Titan-5 mission description - http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...by20050412a.pdf

BTW, this flyby has been bumped up to 1025 km

[imran]

More info:

My T5 post on my blog - http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/2005/04/ti...flyby-info.html
JPL's Titan-5 mission description - http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...by20050412a.pdf

BTW, this flyby has been bumped up to 1025 km

Any reason for the bump?

[ToSeek]

More info:

My T5 post on my blog - http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/2005/04/ti...flyby-info.html
JPL's Titan-5 mission description - http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...by20050412a.pdf

BTW, this flyby has been bumped up to 1025 km

Any reason for the bump?

They found that Titan's atmosphere extends out farther than they thought.

[Decepticon]

I want to see if there is a difference in the smokey black splotches seen in the last flyby.

So excited!

[dilo]

Hi, Jason (VolcanoPele)! Up to now, the most recent Titan image in the RAW section is dated April,12.. When we will see first released image from T5 sequence?
Best regards...

[Decepticon]

From VP Titan News Blog

"Images start being played back at 6:56 am on Sunday morning. Playback continues (for imaging) until 11:30 am. How does this translate into being placed on the JPL Raw images page? On T4, images didn't show up until almost a day after images had been returned to earth, to the disappointment of the public and to the consternation of the imaging team who couldn't even release slightly processed images until after JPL had the images up on their raw images page. Hopefully, there won't be the same delay on this flyby but I can't make any guarantees. Depending on how JPL has the system setup, given that it is a Sunday when these images come down, it could be Monday before the images start showing up. "

Hi, Jason (VolcanoPele)! Up to now, the most recent Titan image in the RAW section is dated April,12..   When we will see first released image from T5 sequence?
Best regards...

[dilo]

From VP Titan News Blog

"Images start being played back at 6:56 am on Sunday morning. Playback continues (for imaging) until 11:30 am. How does this translate into being placed on the JPL Raw images page? On T4, images didn't show up until almost a day after images had been returned to earth, to the disappointment of the public and to the consternation of the imaging team who couldn't even release slightly processed images until after JPL had the images up on their raw images page. Hopefully, there won't be the same delay on this flyby but I can't make any guarantees. Depending on how JPL has the system setup, given that it is a Sunday when these images come down, it could be Monday before the images start showing up. "

[

Yes, based on T5 sequence plan I imagined that but... is hard to wait until tomorrow!

[Decepticon]

We don't even get approach images anymore.
At the worst we will see something on Thursday just as in the last encounter pics where released a week to the day of the encounter.





Maybe it has to do with the trajectory or weekend shift or...ok now now Nit picking

[volcanopele]

We don't even get approach images anymore.
At the worst we will see something on Thursday just as in the last encounter pics where released a week to the day of the encounter.





Maybe it has to do with the trajectory or weekend shift or...ok now now Nit picking  

I've been complaining about the lack of approach images as well, but there is a reason of sorts. On the previous flybys, Ta, Tb, and T3, we approached Titan before Saturn periapsis. So there was time to stare at Titan for a while. Now we approach from after periapsis, so much of the 2-3 days before Titan C/A when we took approach images on the previous flybys is now filled up look at Saturn, its rings, Mimas, Rhea, Polydeuces... so basically there is no time to do it on these post-periapsis flybys.

[volcanopele]

Even though they haven't shown up yet on the JPL raw images page, the images are on the ground. Missing a few though...

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Missing as in not transmitted, or missing as in missed the target?

[volcanopele]

Missing as in not transmitted, or missing as in missed the target?   

missing as in not transmitted. We stopped getting wide angle images for some reason. The narrow angle images taken at the same time as the wide angle images came through just fine...

[dilo]

missing as in not transmitted.  We stopped getting wide angle images for some reason.  The narrow angle images taken at the same time as the wide angle images came through just fine...

Thanks, Jason... The issue you described seems an onboard hw/sw malfunction instead of simple trasmission problem.
Anyway, I'm very excited waiting to see your announce of first releases
Bye.

[Decepticon]

Very excited now!

Looking forward to VIMS!


I feel like a kid in a Toy Store.

[volcanopele]

Very excited now!

Looking forward to VIMS!


I feel like a kid in a Toy Store.

I'd like to see VIMS release their frame from T04.... don't expect that much better from VIMS on T5. They only get better than us near C/A, and ISS and VIMS stop observing Titan one hour before Closest Approach.

[dilo]

Very first images are now appearing!!!!
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=38084

[volcanopele]

Missing as in not transmitted, or missing as in missed the target?   

missing as in not transmitted. We stopped getting wide angle images for some reason. The narrow angle images taken at the same time as the wide angle images came through just fine...

What the?!? Maybe those images are on the ground.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=38215

isn't currently available for us...

Well, that's better than them not being around at all. Perhaps we will get the rest of the WACs tomorrow.

[dilo]

What the?!?  Maybe those images are on the ground.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=38215

isn't currently available for us...

Well, that's better than them not being around at all.  Perhaps we will get the rest of the WACs tomorrow.

A first rough composition using some narrow/wide fields:

[volcanopele]

What the?!?  Maybe those images are on the ground.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=38215

isn't currently available for us...

Well, that's better than them not being around at all.  Perhaps we will get the rest of the WACs tomorrow.

A first rough composition using some narrow/wide fields:

Do you have the link to the middle right image?

EDIT: Nevermind, if I had looked closer, I would have seen that it was a crop from the image above..

[dilo]

Do you have the link to the middle right image?

EDIT: Nevermind, if I had looked closer, I would have seen that it was a crop from the image above..

Yes, is a magnification. By the way, I tried to process and assemble 2 narrow + 3 widecam image herebelow (re-scaling was based on distance):

[Decepticon]

That Splotch/Geyser/Smoky-Black Smokes looks very interesting.


I wonder if any Movement was seen from the last flyby?

Is JPL excited about this VP?

[volcanopele]

That Splotch/Geyser/Smoky-Black Smokes looks very interesting.


I wonder if any Movement was seen from the last flyby?

Is JPL excited about this VP?

None that I could detect initially but I will certainly be looking closer today.

[volcanopele]

New ISS images and INMS data from T5 are now online. Expect some additional releases from ISS early next week (at least they better, I know I spent long enough on those captions yesterday )

INMS data from T5
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07865

Cassini's Views of Titan (wide angle color observation)
http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/view.php?id=1047

Additional analysis
http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/

[deglr6328]

New ISS images and INMS data from T5 are now online.  Expect some additional releases from ISS early next week (at least they better, I know I spent long enough on those captions yesterday    )

INMS data from T5
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07865

Cassini's Views of Titan (wide angle color observation)
http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/view.php?id=1047

Additional analysis
http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/

WOW! I don't know what to think about this! I am of course elated to see the first mass spectra of Titan "air" but the fact that it's from Cassini and not Huygens is boggling!?! Why have we not seen any data release from Huygens GCMS at all ? What else can we glean from this spectrum? (The Chemist I'm lookin' at you! )

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

The reason we've seen so little from any of Huygens' instruments is simple: those are scheduled to be announced in "Nature", a publication which is unbelievably secretive and intolerant of any of the information in its articles being published prematurely (or even after the fact but in other sources, unles they pay a very large fee to it for the privilege).

The "Nature" issue describing the Huygens results is due out in a few weeks. My own free guest subscription to "Nature" also runs out in a few weeks -- but even if I don't make it, it's a safe bet that the articles will quickly be put on the Web by the ESA itself in the new "Latest Publications" section of its space-science webpage ( http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=1 ).

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I'm assuming they'll be releasing their own mosaics of the Huygens landing site? But will they be much better than the dozens already made by amateurs.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

According to Emily Lakdawalla's excellent Planetary Society report on the initial presentation of Huygens results at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference ( http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/titan_lpsc_0819.html ), the DISR team is going to tremendous efforts to put the pieces of the jigsaw together properly -- which is taking much longer than they had planned, thanks both to the fact that each panorama is missing half its frames and to the fact that Huygens' sun sensor for azimuth data turned out to be virtually useless under the circumstances of the descent. Also (as Rene Pascal's marvelous new MRI images at http://www.beugungsbild.de/huygens/huygens.html show), we've been mostly looking up to now at raw images, which can be further processed to vastly greatly improve their quality.

[TheChemist]

WOW!  I don't know what to think about this!   I am of course elated to see the first mass spectra of Titan "air" but the fact that it's from Cassini and not Huygens is boggling!?! Why have we not seen any data release from Huygens GCMS at all ?    What else can we glean from this spectrum? (The Chemist I'm lookin' at you!  )

You called me sir ?
This graph shows the extend of chemical reactions taking place on Titan's higher atmosphere. Lots of reactions, lots of different chemical products, with comparable molecular weights. The similarity in the broad collections of mass peaks (C3, C4, C5) shows these could be due to oligomers of a basic chemical unit (e.g. R, RR, RRR, etc.).
Finally, a thought is that if the C2,C3,C4 labels are correct, these molecules are rather unsaturated, i.e. they have a lot of double bonds (C=C, C=N).
For example, a saturated hydrocarbon with 5C, would have a molecular weight of 72 (12*5+1*12). instead we see in this graph that C5 lays between mass 60-70.
This is as far as I dare speculate with a graph with species abundancies, instead of the real MS data

Can I provide a link to a nice reference site by Andrew Dominic Fortes with respect to Titan ?
Surface Processes on Titan. A review of the literature
The following chapters from the above site are useful for relating to the MS data:
- The composition of the atmosphere
- The composition of the hazes
- Photochemical models

[centsworth_II]

I wonder, was the mass spectrometer placed on Cassini uniquely for analysis of Titan's atmosphere, or is it used for other studies in the Saturn system as well?

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I wonder, was the mass spectrometer placed on Cassini uniquely for analysis of Titan's atmosphere, or is it used for other studies in the Saturn system as well?

No; they'll use it for quite a lot of studies, although obviously its main applicability is to Titan. In fact, they ejected its protective cover and started making measurements with it during Cassini's closest flyby of Saturn shortly after its engine had shut down, to look for traces of gas emitted by the rings -- which they did indeed find. (Water vapor and its products, as expected.)

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

By the way, we saw the first data release from Cassini's INMS right after its first close flyby of Titan last October: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...fm?imageID=1163 . The most interesting things that have turned up are (1) that they're finding fairly complex organics at a much higher atlittude above Titan than expected; and (2) thaty knew from that first INMS data, even before Huygens, that Titan's atmosphere has virtually no primordial argon (which proves that its nitrogen must originally existed entirely as frozen ammonia), but does have extremely tiny traces of argon-40 (only a few parts per million) produced by the decay of radioactive potassium in its rocky core (further proving the existence of cryovolcanism).

Also, we have seen a LITTLE data from Huygens' GCMS, announced as early as the first post-landing scientific press conference. Besides confirmation of the Cassini argon findings, it noted a sudden dramatic jump in the percentage of methane at 18-20 km altitude, due to a methane cloud or mist layer. Above that cloud layer -- which, I believe, was located at the tropopause -- the methane percentage in the atmosphere was about 2.7%; in the cloud layer it shot up about tenfold, and then below that it dropped again to about 5.4%.

Starting about 3 minutes after landing, the detected methane level again started rising slowly, no doubt due to additional methane evaporated out of the muddy surface by the GCMS' heated vent and by Huygens' own emitted warmth. Very little ethane was detected boiled out of the surface material, though -- which may not be surprising; not only does ethane have a higher boiling point, but it is probably produced so slowly by the photochemical process in Titan's atmosphere that the incredbiby slow drizzle of ethane smog which has reached Titan's surface over the eons is very likely intermixed with and diluted by the subsurface "aquifer" of liquid methane on and near its surface. Traces of a considerable number of more complex atmospheric organics and nitriles -- maybe several dozen -- were also detected, although the teams have been closemouthed up to now about their identities.

[edstrick]

I do industrial image processing to make $, but I can play some with planetary data on the side at work. I have some image processing routines I developed that progressively enhance detail as features get smaller, originally developed for digital x-ray radiography. These can have considerable use in planetary images, particularly low contrast targets like gas giant atmospheres, and Titan.

I applied the enhancement to pia06228, the near IR band image of titan's surface and it brings out a lot more details than the press-release version, particularly 2 or 3 plume like features north of the northern edge of the low latitude dark features. Haze layer variations on the limb and north polar haze-cap are very visible.

PIA06229 contained a near IR surface image as the green band, a visible image as red and a methane band image as blue. Attached are highly enhanced versions of the methane and visible band images, and a less severely enhanced of the two combined as a color image without the near IR surface band to muck up atmosphere feature visibility. There are a lot of fine details in the visible band image at low latitudes, but much of them are below the single-pixel signal-to-noise level of the camera, and they are streaky, east-west, so it will be rather difficult to use them to map atmosphere rotation at that level in the atmosphere.

PIA06230 is a red/green/blue image, butterscotch color in natural rendition. Enhancement brings out a a significant amount of low contrast features in the northern polar region, plus latitudinal variations in limb haze structure.

Hope you like.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Decepticon]

WOW!

Great work. Love to see more!

I do industrial image processing to make $, but I can play some with planetary data on the side at work.  I have some image processing routines I developed that progressively enhance detail as features get smaller, originally developed for digital x-ray radiography.  These can have considerable use in planetary images, particularly low contrast targets like gas giant atmospheres, and Titan.

I applied the enhancement to pia06228, the near IR band image of titan's surface and it brings out a lot more details than the press-release version, particularly 2 or 3 plume like features north of the northern edge of the low latitude dark features.  Haze layer variations on the limb and north polar haze-cap are very visible.

PIA06229 contained a near IR surface image as the green band, a visible image as red and a methane band image as blue.  Attached are highly enhanced versions of the methane and visible band images, and a less severely enhanced of the two combined as a color image without the near IR surface band to muck up atmosphere feature visibility.  There are a lot of fine details in the visible band image at low latitudes, but much of them are below the single-pixel signal-to-noise level of the camera, and they are streaky, east-west, so it will be rather difficult to use them to map atmosphere rotation at that level in the atmosphere.

PIA06230 is a red/green/blue image, butterscotch color in natural rendition.  Enhancement brings out a a significant amount of low contrast features in the northern polar region, plus latitudinal variations in limb haze structure.

Hope you like.

[mike]

Yeah, that is good stuff. I'm not sure what I'm seeing, but that's not much different from any other Titan image I've seen.

[Decepticon]

Is there a press release today? Or some time in the next 2 days?

[volcanopele]

I applied the enhancement to pia06228, the near IR band image of titan's surface and it brings out a lot more details than the press-release version, particularly 2 or 3 plume like features north of the northern edge of the low latitude dark features.  Haze layer variations on the limb and north polar haze-cap are very visible.

Nice. Those plume-like features are certainly an matter of intense interest for me.

[volcanopele]

Is there a press release today? Or some time in the next 2 days?

VIMS has finally decided to join the rest of us, releasing a Titan image for the first time since Tb in December (and the only other release period was the Enceladus image last month).

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07868

I also have a lengthy discussion about it on my blog (link in signature for those who haven't gone there).

We have some additional images I prepared last Sunday that, hopefully, will be released either tomorrow or Friday.... Again, they better, JPL finally has them now...

[Decepticon]

Ahh nuts! Nothing released today.


Maybe something for tommorow.

[volcanopele]

Ahh nuts! Nothing released today.


Maybe something for tommorow.

Okay, I just checked, and more images WILL be coming on Monday. At least these releases now have "release dates" on them, whereas before they just came up as 0-00-00.

[volcanopele]

Finally....
http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/ir_index.php?id=10
http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/