[quote="Hamlet"]
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Originally Posted by Jerry
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In a court of law, if the defense can present a scenario that is just as plausible as the government's case, but exhonerates the defendant, the judge must give the defenses reasoning equal weight, and throw the case out.
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Sorry, but physics and engineering aren't settled in a court of law. You may be able to bamboozle a jury with your theory, but it doesn't work in the real world.
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In a court of law, a judge must allow equal weight to each and every hypothesis that is constistent with the physical facts, and not grant extra weight to the theory that has been on the table the longest and/or the most technical detail. There is a lot of evidence that contraindicates Big Bang theory that in my opinion is unfairly-unscientifically downplayed.
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Originally Posted by Hamlet
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Tough question. I cannot completely rule out a scene where the probe slowly drifted at low altitudes for more than an hour - although we have been told that the timer function would have jettisoned the 8 m parachute in twenty minutes, regardless of how confusing the accelerometer data is.
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The tilt sensor had a design accuracy of +/- 0.5 degrees. Any deviation from vertical greater than 1/2 degree would show up in the data. There shouldn't be any confusion in analysis.
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If Huygens landed on a rock and sat and wobbled, it would be obvious in the images. I don't see how the tilt sensor could indicate any activity after more than 25 minutes...
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According to this:
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Accelerometer measurements suggest probe settled 10 to 15 cm into the surface
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Other data indicate that underneath the hard crust the material was relatively soft. Any "wobble" in Huygens would quickly be damped out in this environment and certainly wouldn't last for 25 minutes.
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But let's look at all the sensors - I would hate to throw out a perfectly good theory, just because the tilt indicator wasn't screwed down properly
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What evidence to you have that the tilt sensors weren't "screwed down properly"? Introducing yet another in a long string of "what if's" to buck up your "theory". Here's a very clear test for your theory. But you back away, preferring to hide behind yet another unsubstantiated idea. |
Point taken. Tilt data in the time-stamped housekeeping data must be consistent with the probe being laterally dormant after about twenty minutes from entry.
There are other indicators than must be dormant or not changing above noise levels as well: Pressure, all of the accelerometers, the speed of sound - external temperature should be nearly constant. - after the first 20 minutes.
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- I've played pinball games that would tilt if you breathed too heavy.
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LOL! You actually think that comparing a pinball machine to Huygens has any relevance?
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Maybe my 'Mooning Titan' that shows up from frame to frame is a big steel ball :wink:
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The temperature sensors are on the 'top hat', (which is really on the bottom) of the probe. As soon as the heat shield is popped off, the probes are exposed directly to the Titan atmosphere- So there is no way on Titan that temperature readings more than ~15 minutes into the mission should have been reported at 25C.
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The 25C value was for the internal temperature of the probe. This was higher than expected and there has been no definitive answer. Lebreton speculated it might be overperformance of the probe's insulation or some factors about the atmosphere they were unaware of.
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Well, don't give Lebreton's idle spectulation too much weight - the judge wouldn't buy it.
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I think this is pretty darn good evidence that the heat shield was still in place, long after it should have fallen on a completely different trajectory.
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Except we have all that other pesky evidence that contradicts this.
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So far, I have temperature, speed of sound, and optical data that are well outside of the expected profile, and consistent with a data set below 40 km. I can add one more:
Cassini's scratch & sniff machine has detected a number of hydrocarbon derivatives of methane, including ethane, benzene, and periodic combinations consistant with the predicted solar-induced methane reactions. The first reports from Huygens GCMS, if the Planetary Society report is correct, show suprisingly low levels of these gases. This is consistent with a scenario where Huygens did not start sampling the atmosphere until it was less than 40km,. where the solar-induced reaction rates should be less.