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Lord FlatHead

Huygens probe lands on Titan, sends back images

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Janderson said:

So what was the point of sending it there?

Some bullshit point to get congressmen to sign off billions in tax dollars. Jesus Fuckin' Christ, and people wonder why I'm Republican.

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Titan has conditions similar to what the early Earth probably had, chemically speaking. Scientists are interested in studying it in hopes of better understanding the origins of life. Not that they expect to find life there, too cold, but they are hoping to find the chemicals of life. There, that a good enough reason?

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ScareCrow said:

Some bullshit point to get congressmen to sign off billions in tax dollars. Jesus Fuckin' Christ, and people wonder why I'm Republican.

May come as a shock, but not everything you see is American. The Huygens probe was built by the European Space Agency. The Italian Space Agency provided Cassini's high-gain communication antenna.

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ScareCrow said:

Some bullshit point to get congressmen to sign off billions in tax dollars. Jesus Fuckin' Christ, and people wonder why I'm Republican.

A couple hundred million dollar space probe is hardly even on the level of wastefulness as so many other things in our government. Subsidising large businesses like the airline or railroad industry, tax exemption loopholes for large businesses. 20 billion dollar secret space satellites, Star Wars Programs, Balistic missile defense systems... a "cheap" space probe (which wasn't even paid for by America) is hardly a big concern if you're worried about governmenr bloating.

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ScareCrow said:

Some bullshit point to get congressmen to sign off billions in tax dollars. Jesus Fuckin' Christ, and people wonder why I'm Republican.


I suppose you think this was a better use of taxpayer dollars? http://www.costofwar.com/

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AndrewB said:

Give them a break. Their throughput is like a fraction of what a modern dialup modem is.

Wrong. Data was transmitted at 60-140 kilobytes per second.

The ping was horrible, however.

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Quasar said:

Now if some green thing with antennae would just run across the picture..


They know we are here. They are coming!

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ScareCrow said:
Jesus Fuckin' Christ, and people wonder why I'm Republican.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Even if you where retarded enough to believe that the very republican Son of Star Wars was necessary and effective enough to justify it's 40 billion dollar bill, Didn't Gorge W Bush announce plans to go to mars last year?

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Here's an image of the "shoreline" from another angle: Shoreline

I'll let you be the judge of whether or not that's fluid or mushy terrain or whatever. My guess would be that's it a fluid, since the the lighter land near the dark stuff looks like it was weathered from a fluid running along it.

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I'm too lazy to read the entire thread, so maybe this has been posted before, but isn't the Huygens's mission to dive into one of those oceans and find out what's below?

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That was one possibility, however the probe would be able to capture data regardless of where it landed, be it sea or land. It seems as though Huygens landed near an ocean surrounded by "fog" or "clouds", but not in it. So far we've only seen pictures, but a microphone/microphones mounted on the craft recorded winds blowing around during descent. It wouldn't surprise me if in the following days we get some harder data that the other pieces of equipment are or were collecting.

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Goat said:

somethin a LITTLE bit better

These are only the first photos released buddy, we'll get better when they've further processed the data collected by the probe.

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IIRC the "oceans" or "lakes" on Titan are liquid hydrocarbon and various organic chemicals. Imagine being in a really cold puddle of oil, I have a feeling it's kinda like that.

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Snarboo said:

Here's an image of the "shoreline" from another angle: Shoreline

Ah, that's more like it :)

I'm as clueless as everyone else to what's in that picture exactly, but with a little imagination it does look like a rugged coastline on another world - which is awesome. You know, as in the original meaning of the word, not as in 'my hands are awesome!'.

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This is some pretty badass stuff here, sure we'll probably not find an ancient buried civilization (although that would be a major plus) but stuff like this always gets me excited.

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Snarboo said:

Here's an image of the "shoreline" from another angle: Shoreline

Holy crap, that looks like a wave over there on the left.

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S1lent said:

Yay! Rocks! This made my day.


dude, seriously, if you don't care about this thread, then please do us a favor and stop reading it. That goes for everyone else.

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