The Planetary Society weblog from Darmstadt has now wound down, but before they finished they reported on the last formal press conference about Huygens which contained lots of good details such as “they collected 3 hours and 37 minutes of data, of which 1 hour and 10 minutes was on the surface“, how far the “penetrometer” went into Titan’s surface and that there will be an official inquiry into why the A channel data was lost.
Monthly Archives: January 2005
More Huygens – First Colour Image, First Composite Image, First Scaled Image…
Wow!
They’re all appearing now at the this page including the first colour image, mirrored below:
Credits: ESA/NASA/University of Arizona
First Sounds from Titan
The Planetary Society has the first of the sounds from the Huygens probe’s microphone on its descent through Titans atmosphere, including one segment that might be from after landing.
Huygens Blog for Latest Info
The Planetary Society’s Science & Technology coordinator is at Darmstadt in Germany and is keeping a blog on Huygens of all that’s happening, from the look of it before it appears on the ESA’s site. 🙂
More Detailed Titan Image from Huygens Descent
In the last few seconds ESA has released a more detailed image of the surface of Titan showing large boulders on the surface. It is, as I write, uncalibrated, so the size of them are unknown.
Credits: ESA/NASA/University of Arizona
Huygens Probe Lands on Titan – First Image from Descent Released
The Hugens probe that piggy-backed to Saturn on the Cassini spacecraft has successfully landed on Titan and initial data indicates it has landed safely on a hard surface as opposed to making a splashdown. This ESA probe continued to send data for as least as long as Cassini was above the horizon.
NASA (who built the Cassini spacecraft) have put up a press release with the first raw image from the descent of Hugyens, though the image archive itself will be appearing here at the ESA’a website. However, connections to it are timing out at present.
Update: ESA now has that image too.
Here is that first Hugens image.
Credit: ESA/NASA/University of Arizona
The Tao of Tea
For those of us who like a nice cup of tea, here’s an interesting site (found by Googling around for the origins of Chai Tea). The Tao of Tea is a Fair Trade approved tea company with a huge selection of really interesting teas and lots of information on things like how to brew tea and whether white tea is new or old (I’d not heard about it before).
Anyway, if you’re a tea aficionado it’s worth a look..
White House Blocks Measure to Prevent Torture by the CIA
Reuters is reporting that the White House has intervened to block a measure that would have prohibited the CIA from torturing prisoners.
The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation, the article said. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment and would have required the CIA as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using, said the report on the Times’ Web site.
Google News has lots more articles on it.
Apparently Condoleezza Rice, who will soon be representing the US to the world, said it:
“provides legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy,”
So much for the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment which came into force in 1987 saying in Article 2:
- Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
- No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
- An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.
All Missing Accounted For in South Australia Bush Fire
Thankfully all 14 of the missing from the fires in South Australia have now been accounted for so the confirmed death toll stays at 9. However, it is still the deadliest bushfire in 22 years.
Muppet Takes Flight
Museum Victoria has a Tawny Frogmouth chick that has just learnt how to fly.
Muppet now presents staff with a daily challenge, as they discover where it has settled for the day after its nocturnal wanderings.
Very cute..