Quote:
Originally Posted by djellison
But that doesn't stop you trying eh?
 |
It is very unfortunate that the 'A' channel failure occurred on Huygens: We lost an independent constraint on wind velosity. It is also unfortunate that the solar indexing system could not lock on the sun.
But in view of the way the balance of the data was treated, I don't think it would have made much difference. Although they did not say so at the time; when the first descent profiles were released, mission scientists ignored both channels of the ground truthing radar, and pieced together a descent based upon the time that the ground-sensing probe signal was time stamped, and a bazaar wind profile within Titan's atmosphere. Cassini mission scientists are at it again:
http://planetary.org/news/2008/0320_...Mountains.html
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Planetary Society
...the crust does not rotate at exactly the same rate that the moon orbits Saturn.
|
Ok, so Titan is not locked in an orbit that always faces Saturn. Neither is Mercury locked facing the sun, nor the Earth, nor Jupiter, nor Saturn. But what do Cassini scientists conclude from this observational fact?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Emily
Outside forces acting on Titan's crust, most importantly the force of the global circulation of the atmosphere, can apparently slide the entire crust around on Titan's ocean...
|
The orbit is not sychronized with the rotation of Titan, so there has to be a soft liquid layer and the crust is sliding like a spinning egg? Maybe. But why can't the rotation and orbit not be syncronized for some other reason? Reading on:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Emily
And the presence of abundant nitrogen in Titan's atmosphere suggests that it may have ammonia (which contains nitrogen atoms) in its interior, which would lower the melting temperature of water to make an ocean even more likely there. However, this RADAR data represents the first empirical evidence for the existence of that ocean.
|
Except that the data does not come even close to agreeing with this hypotheses spawned before the Cassini mission! Neither Cassini nor Huygens has measured significant quantities of ammonia, a very small, volatile molecule that should have been detected in the atmosphere, if there is a lot of it on or near the surface!
Finally:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Ralph Lorenze
There's a fundamental difficulty with Titan global circulation models right now -- all of them -- which is that they predict that the predominant winds at low latitudes near the surface would be easterly, from east to west. Yet all the sand dunes point in exactly the opposite direction. There's something we do not understand about Titan's circulation.
|
Say what? The wind direction - as exposed by the drift patterns, is exactly opposite the direction necessary to paddle the orbital rotation of Titan in the direction it is rotating? What kind of physical model of the planet can cause that? This is absurb!
Restating theories about the Titan system that have been around since long before Cassini, and then drawing conclusions that are consistent with these preconceptions, but directly contradicted by the evidence presented by Cassini is very bad science! It is offensive to the heart of this mission, and what this wonderful probe is trying to tell us: The preconceptions of what Titan is or should be are all wrong.