Huygens
... is a comin' down. In about four hours time now, at about 9:00 Greenwich, one of the nerviest missions anyone's ever sent to the outer solar system is scheduled to plunge into Titan's atmosphere.
So, just before Huygens goes barrelling into the clouds, and hits whatever it's going to hit around another two and a half hours later (or so the mission planners expect) I'd just like to say six words to the inspired nutters
of Cassini and Huygens both, who said to themselves, all of those years back, 'I know, let's send the biggest robotic probe ever on two long loops right 'round the sun, fling it out 9.5 AU to Saturn, have it drop a probe into Titan's atmosphere, and see if we can actually slow said probe down enough with 'chutes as it descends that we might just get some pictures of something interesting before it goes splash and/or splat, depending on what we actually hit... For that matter, let's see if we can slow it down enough we actually have a faint hope it might actually land mostly intact and functional on said unknown surface, a cool 1.5 billion freakin' kilometers or so away from here... Hey, yeah, what the hell, let's try that'...
And my six words would be:
Good luck, you beautiful crazies, you.
That's it. Crossin' my fingers they get something from the surface, whatever it may be.
(Image: ESA)
So, just before Huygens goes barrelling into the clouds, and hits whatever it's going to hit around another two and a half hours later (or so the mission planners expect) I'd just like to say six words to the inspired nutters
of Cassini and Huygens both, who said to themselves, all of those years back, 'I know, let's send the biggest robotic probe ever on two long loops right 'round the sun, fling it out 9.5 AU to Saturn, have it drop a probe into Titan's atmosphere, and see if we can actually slow said probe down enough with 'chutes as it descends that we might just get some pictures of something interesting before it goes splash and/or splat, depending on what we actually hit... For that matter, let's see if we can slow it down enough we actually have a faint hope it might actually land mostly intact and functional on said unknown surface, a cool 1.5 billion freakin' kilometers or so away from here... Hey, yeah, what the hell, let's try that'...
And my six words would be:
Good luck, you beautiful crazies, you.
That's it. Crossin' my fingers they get something from the surface, whatever it may be.
(Image: ESA)
posted by AJM at 11:02 p.m. (Permanent Link)
