Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Why not earlier than this? But it's cool


I'm confused by this.  NASA apparently just released footage from the Huygens probe that was released from the Cassini satellite, entered the mega-moon Titan's atmosphere and descended to the surface, taking measurements and snapping images on the descent.   It even got images of when it landed, including the passing shadow of its parachute, as that fluttered by, on the organic carbon winds of Titan.

But what I want to know is:  why did it take so long to release this descent video?  Huygens landed on Titan in 2005.  It took 12 years to process this data?  I don't think so.

But they don't explain why it took so long, so we can just contemplate what it saw.  (From what I can gather reading various articles about it, they put together a new video, with some computer magic, to commemorate the landing as the Cassini mission nears its finale.  Or to put it another way, they didn't stitch together the images taken by the camera into a video until now.  I guess.)

First glimpse of an alien world: Nasa finally shares stunning footage of its 2005 landing on Saturn's moon, Titan


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