[extropy-chat] Huygens: First visitor to Titan

[Amara Graps]

The last ESA press conference (at ESOC, Darmstadt) for the day ended
a short time ago. There, Dr. Tomasko of the imager team gave a
description of the images. One looks to be cut by liquid "drainage
channels" flowing from the highlands to lower levels (lower right to
upper left), with shoreline. The image that looks like clouds also
has shoreline with 'islands', he said. The rocky image looks like
Mars (some thought it was a joke..), but I don't think you need
wonder about lack of liquid. The Huygen scientists at the press
conference (and those with whom I just spent time with at ESRIN 
in Italy) seem confident that liquid (was/is..?that's the question) 
on the surface.

These are just 3 images (there's many more), and remember that
Huygens carried 5 other instruments. Plus the Doppler data will give
great rotation rates and other science for Titan (this is from the
transmitter that continues to send signals captured now by Earth's 
radio telescopes.

There is another press conference tomorrow at 11am CET. I won't
try to watch that one, but ESA is pretty fast to get words/images on
the web. One person from the communications department told
me that 2million visitors visited the ESA web site today. Alot of 
interest in Titan! That's good news too.
Amara