First picture from Titan's surface.
Breaking news from Saturn. Cool enough to deserve one more FPP in addition to the older one. I had to dig around to find this breaking image -- sorry that it's a bit tiny.
Nostril: More like, it has rocks in that area. Looked like they had some pictures from the descent showing some areas that looked a lot darker and yadda yadda.
Wow... if this set of triplets is what I think it is (high altitude image upon descent) then are we seeing flowing liquid formations on the surface? Or pehaps just remanants thereof?
Johnny: Thats what I thought. And that big dark splotch at the bottom? Hmm...
I wonder if anyone around here has the know-how to enhance some of these in the right way. I mean, I'd tweak them in photoshop, but since they're so small can't say it'd be of any use.
Damn you NASA and making us wait for a week! :P
Some of those rocks vaguely look like they're sunk into the surface (ice?). Anyone know if this is the original resolution of the images, or are these the pics for the plebes?
I split the triplet Johnny Hazard linked to above and adjusted the histogram to get full contrast:
Results (semi-self link)
There are some interesting things going on there! Quite exciting.
From what I understand, these are images as they are coming in. No resolution enhancements, no color seperation/saturation/additions.
We are seeing them as NASA is seeing them.
Well, except for a few missing photos of green, eight armed, bubble-domed creatures sunbathing off the shoreline. But other than that, yeah, these are the originals.
Man, seeing that split, killThisKid, makes it all the more cool. Cheers.
I am all-atwitter.
whar be the dragons?
Go to the space ninjas, and take a left.
I was expecting more sirens.
So, besides some small fuzzy pictures anybody with a pinhole camera and a few days freetime could make, I'm assuming there's nothing to see here until NASA finishes faking color correcting and mosaic-ing the images?
Despite what you might think from the sarcasm, I'm actually very very excited.
Isn't this an ESA mission?
Tell them we come with a piece.
University of Arizona apparently has removed their Titan pictures from their server.
Rolypoly, I'm sure its because they were worried because killThisKid did such a bang up job with that contrast. ;)
They took the pictures down because the aliens showed up.
They took their pictures down because some scientist probably thinks that the internet is going to scoop them and write a paper on the results.
I kid you not. In the case of a certain Mars orbital mission which shall remain nameless, the principal investigator sat on the pictures for months on end, refusing to release them, in case they got scooped in publication.
Needless to say, NASA now requires all projects to have public outreach clauses in the contract where the scientists are required to publish at least low-quality images as soon as they're available.
From what I can gather here, they're sitting on hundreds of pictures right now, having "officially" released 3.
And you'll notice that the triplet links above aren't working.
And remember that Cassini was launched in '97, clearly without an image-release requirement clause.
* I should say in the second paragraph "presumably in case they got scooped in publication."
I really don't know why they sat on the pictures. But they did. And it seems someone is doing it now.
it's JPL.
I'm tempted to dig them out of my cache and BitTorrent them.
Needless to say, NASA now requires all projects to have public outreach clauses in the contract where the scientists are required to publish at least low-quality images as soon as they're available.
Thank you, France Cordova.
Well, we have at least THREE of their pictures! And I have done what little corrections can be done to it.
TAKE THAT PICTURE HORDING NASA FREAKS!
Woah, I think that made my day worth while!
Anyhow, I have the rest of pics at work in my browser cache. I'll post 'em all tomorrow.
Actually, Nostril, while JPL manages the Cassini mission, Huygens is run from ESA mission control, and the data pretty much goes directly to the PI of the DISR instrument, which is at the University of Arizona.
Also, Cali, I don't think it's France Cordova, either, unless she's the PI for the DISR instrument...?
And killThisKid, please post when you have a chance! I've been wanting to look at more than 3 pics all day.
Seems that the single most likely person sitting on the photos is Dr. Tomasko at the U of A.
Info here (on the same page as the person who had to remove all their pics earlier in the day).
Chimaera: Seems I need to update my comment then.
TAKE THAT PICTURE HORDING DR TOMASKO FREAKBOY!
There, that should do it!
Well, I really don't know if he's a freak boy or not, but I really couldn't find anything else to end that all capital letters sentence with.
If anyone is willing to host & post the yanked Titan triplet images, E-mail me in my profile and I'll E-mail them to you. I just got them out of my cache.
I had a really bad phone interview with an astrophysics professor at Arizona (which started with me accidentally hanging up on him). I never heard back from him.
I also know a grad student there, who almost certainly has nothing to do with Hyugens.
I don't know why I posted any of this.
And I'm not at all embarrassed that I misspelled "Huygens".
Chimaera - She's not responsible for these photos, but she pushed very hard for the Hubble photos to be released to the public, which set a bit of a precedent. Sorry if that was misleading.
and what i actually meant was....here is some video of that picture hoarding Dr. Tomasco...who has just, um, kindly released some lovely panoramas and color photos.......
Herrrchhhhens.
enhance some of these in the right way. I mean, I'd tweak them in photoshop
We are seeing them as NASA is seeing them.
... green, eight armed, bubble-domed creatures sunbathing off the shoreline. But other than that, yeah, these are the originals.
Gotta love that photoshop.
They don't sit on pictures, that's just a cover story. They really just don't have pictures, except for a few photoshopped ones. Because outer space doesn't exist, it's just s story to keep you believing in the "round earth" lie.
Lake on Titan? Interesting time-lapse movie as well.
fakingcolor correcting and mosaic-ing the images? Despite what you might think from the sarcasm, I'm actually very very excited.