Titan landing today - cool or what?
Discussion
I, for one, find this absolutely fascinating. Say what you like about the yanks, but they do have a fantastically curious spirit and the whole of mankind benefits from their investments. I just hope the probe doesn't end up like the Beagle II - that would be a real shame!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171945.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171945.stm
srebbe64 said:
I, for one, find this absolutely fascinating. Say what you like about the yanks, but they do have a fantastically curious spirit and the whole of mankind benefits from their investments. I just hope the probe doesn't end up like the Beagle II - that would be a real shame!
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171945.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171945.stm</a>
Indeed, this is amazing. And Titan is the only other planet/moon in the solar system that has a remote possibility of life on it. Woudn't it be amazing if the found something, however small, that actually lives there? It would mean that the chances of life on other planets in other solar system all over the universe.
>> Edited by diddyman on Friday 14th January 09:10
diddyman said:
I, for one, find this absolutely fascinating. Say what you like about the yanks, but they do have a fantastically curious spirit and the whole of mankind benefits from their investments. I just hope the probe doesn't end up like the Beagle II - that would be a real shame!
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171945.stm"><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171945.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171945.stm</a></a>
Indeed, this is amazing. And Titan is the only other planet/moon in the solar system that has a remote possibility of life on it. Woudn't it be amazing if the found something, however small, that actually lives there? It would mean that the chances of life on other planets in other solar system all over the universe.
>> Edited by diddyman on Friday 14th January 09:10
There is some debate, apparently, about how sterile these probes are when they leave Earth. Astronauts exploring the moon bought back some debris from a probe that had been sent there a few years earlier. When they bought it back to earth they discovered that tiny bacteria found on it jumped back in to life when exposed to water and reasonable temperatures. Point being, if, say, in 200 years microbes are discovered on Titan there will be much debate about whether it was humans that put them there.
I've been waiting for this for over 20 years. It's that long since the idea of landing a probe on Titan was first mooted (after the first close up photos of the moon were returned by the Voyager 1 probe in 1980).
And it's not all NASA - Cassini is NASA's baby and Huygens (the Titan lander) is a European Space Agency (ESA) project. This mission is a fine example of international collaboration in space.
>> Edited by Eric Mc on Friday 14th January 09:55
And it's not all NASA - Cassini is NASA's baby and Huygens (the Titan lander) is a European Space Agency (ESA) project. This mission is a fine example of international collaboration in space.
>> Edited by Eric Mc on Friday 14th January 09:55
I couldn't give a stuff about whether such places can support HUMAN life - or whether we can use such a place as a practical base for human exploitation. I find this a very anthromorphic approach to why we explore. We explore, not JUST because there might be some practical reason for doing something, but because finding things out is just interesting, exciting and inspirational.
I too hope they find something out about this moon - although usually the answers discovered in turn usually raise more questions. But that's all part of the fun.
I too hope they find something out about this moon - although usually the answers discovered in turn usually raise more questions. But that's all part of the fun.
srebbe64 said:That's right, NASA can't and don't sterilise space probes to the required degree because it would kill key bits of the mission as well. There is at least one strain of bacteria (radiobacter durans) that can and does live in nuclear reactors.
There is some debate, apparently, about how sterile these probes are when they leave Earth. Astronauts exploring the moon bought back some debris from a probe that had been sent there a few years earlier. When they bought it back to earth they discovered that tiny bacteria found on it jumped back in to life when exposed to water and reasonable temperatures. Point being, if, say, in 200 years microbes are discovered on Titan there will be much debate about whether it was humans that put them there.
Eric Mc said:And it keeps the research funding coming in! Is there life on mars? if we knew one way or the other for sure that's one less reason to go back again...
I too hope they find something out about this moon - although usually the answers discovered in turn usually raise more questions. But that's all part of the fun.
Take the issue of life 'possibly' introduced onto other planets or satellites by our space probes. If their DNA is examined to look at links with similar life on earth, what's to say that any similarity isn't due to the 'panspermia' theory which argues that life on earth will have a common origin with life on other solar system objects. Rapid mutation as found with these bugs will just add to the uncertainties.
Read about it all and much more on the truly excellent www.space.com
The forums are great there too, and for a real laugh and heated debate check the SETI one...
The forums are great there too, and for a real laugh and heated debate check the SETI one...
Or not having things left over when they should have been...
There was the story of someone forgetting to pull the arming pin out of the separation switch on one satellite before it got launched... so when it got pushed off the top of the rocket it just kind of floated there with no power, no nothing...
Err, that wasn't me I hasten to add...
There was the story of someone forgetting to pull the arming pin out of the separation switch on one satellite before it got launched... so when it got pushed off the top of the rocket it just kind of floated there with no power, no nothing...
Err, that wasn't me I hasten to add...
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