Simple answer:

1) In order for initial results to be released before the respective publication, they need to have a "public outreach value", like images, or data from "life experiments". In this case, parts of this data is released in a form of a few plots or discussed in interviews, and if it is images, well you get the real thing. But what actually is the public outreach value of radar data? Obviously, it is non-existent! How exciting could some altitude data actually be for the public? The only way that they would be exciting would have been if they show that the topography data that radar recorded indicated waves or maybe a crater or something significant. But almost no topography is seen in radar data

2) There are laws regulating the release of the data. The radar data is used for a project called "Descent Trajectory Reconstruction" and among the rules of the group working on this is that no data is released until the first relevant publication occurs. This is common for most instruments. Now, you might say: is releasing just a plot in jpg format will cause them problems with these regulations? Is somebody going to steal data from looking at these plots? Of course not. If you want an answer for this, refer to 1

Viking EDL report, I have a hard copy - the heat shields experienced greater-than-expected temperatures, but the margins were not extreme. I appreciate your search for a similar device in Huygens, I haven't found one either.

Exactly where do you see an umbilical? I've yet to find any close-up images that show any such thing. [/quote]

If you look at the raw images there is a whole series of the "Arrowhead" That makes up part of the mosiac. It is rather eiry to look at these in a three-D mode (put two images one image width apart with a white background and look at them cross-eyed.) What appears flat on the mosiac looks like it is flailing or suspended in mid-air. Admittedly this could be an illusion, but it could also be the residual of the seam joints on the thermal blanket. There are a number of images of the "ring" that do the same thing: It pops out like a razor-thin object.

Incidently, These stereo images solve another puzzle: I have kept asking why there are multiple images of the same thing. The answer is that there are not: they are very slightly offset from each other, and that is what creates the stereo effect. You see, the images were supposed to be offset from each other by 30 degrees. But the offset was too be determined by the location of the sun. In Tomasko's report, he stated that the sky sensor was not able to lock-on the sun, but he did not indicate what that would do to the timing of the images.

The DISR was capable of taking up to ~8 frame sets per second, and that is what I think it did - at least until the 'send' buffer was full. Since it could not figure out where the sun was, It snapped off as many pictures as it possibly could - as many as ~400/min. That explains why all the "duplicates", and how so many images were created in such a short amount of descent time.

True, and FWIW, 'they' did not agree with my 'wiring harness'. I included it in the discussion thread because I could not resolve it on my own. Omicrons images, and your critique have been very helpful.

No, and I don't think there was one. I think this is evidence the upper atmosphere is thinner, so the slowing was more gradual. I think it is evidence that much higher velocities are needed to create turbulence in Titan's atmosphere that on Earth.

Turbulence has EVERYTHING to do with this. Without turbulence, gas compression and heating rates would be much lower than expected. This is not a new dart: I have mentioned this before, although not in the context of the survival of the thermal blanket. I never even realized this until now!

Turbulance is one of the least understood phenomenons in nature: Chaotic patterns in gases and liquids that seem to evolve out of nowhere. I have hypothesized that these develop across shear planes, where the velocity differential hetrodynes the frequency of the standing wave nodes of massive objects: In the atmosphere this creates the charge imbalance that cause static build-up and lightening. In fluids, it causes unpredictable resistive swirls and vortices, chaotic flow.

Since the amplitude of these waves caused by the sun is much greater near the Earth than near Saturn, turbulance and static effects are greater. This is why probes entering the Martian atmosphere have not generatied the ionized gases expected. It is also why no ionizing flash was observed when Huygens entered Titan's atmosphere. (Many powerful telescopes were aimed at Titan, hoping to glimpse this predicted event.)

Without the predicted turbulence and resulting gas compression and friction, and a more gradual resistance from the colder, thinner-than-expected upper atmosphere, it took Huygens another 140 km to slow from 7000 m/s to 300 ms, where the parachute deployment sequence began. A tattered thermal blanket survived like the fragile wings of a moth on a windscreen.

Well, without imagination, it is very difficult to see how any truly new discoveries could be envisioned. So what is the point of the mission?

I'm certainly willing to admit that my analysis may be biased by my belief that new physics are possible, in fact necessary, to explain the world outside of the world around us. Which brings up a good question: Without the ability to imagine physics beyond the first rudimentary understanding of binary logic, how did the Vulcan civilization evolve?

First, there is no reason to assume the radar data is compressed. The caption provided by the ESA simply says it is the "final moments of the descent", whereas with the wind acoustical data, they specifically state that the data is compressed.

The ESA audio is a very large digital file. We simply ran this file though a program designed to convert this type of audio file to a plotable digital field. The audio file contained two channels of data (stereo) but one of them was blank. The "X" axis data contains the time between the pulses and there are two pieces of "Y" data, one contains magitude, and the other contains the pulse widths. The pulse widths get slightly smaller over time. After the initial "sounding", the spacing between the pulses is constant at about 1.5 seconds for the first 12 seconds of data. Then there is another "sounding" sequence followed by another 24 seconds of steady pulses. At 24 seconds, the pulse widths become smaller by two magnitudes, then both the pulse widths and the spacing between the pulses narrows dramatically from 25 second until the end of the data (~67 seconds total).

The physical system we know and think we understand makes survival highly improbable, if not impossible. It can be argued that the optical depth measured from the surface is impossible. It is certainly indicative that the upper atmosphere is much thinner than was expected, but that is not possible, either. Neither is the shallow mean depth of the craters.

Remember, the moons of Jupiter were discounted by Galileo's contemporaries because they were impossible. So were the results of the Michealson Morley experiment. Impossible sometimes means new physics.

So when you insist that physical laws don't allow the remnant of the thermal blankets to exist, and we can see them sitting on the surface of Titan, with the same ring and fold patterns emblossed in them as we see in the pictures of Huygens before the probe was launched, I agree with you - It is virtually impossible to explain, using known physical laws.

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jwj

It's ok not to know.

Definitely yours. You are mixing up wind and turbulence. Again. Do you think you can avoid a thorny issue and bring it up again two pages later? Do you think we forget that quickly?

One of the big differences is that Galilieo had proof that could be verified. One of the traits of a good scientist.

So please show us your "proof" of the heat shields. Post a link of the pictures in question, with a detailed explaination of why you think there is anything that resembles a heat shield.

And why would a picture of the heat shield need new phyisics to explain it? It's either there or it isn't. No need to re-write anything at the moment.

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"The universe is driven by the complex interaction between three ingredients: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest." - G'Kar

Emphasizing by me. You will have to notice that "last few kilometres" took quite a bit longer than the 63.58 seconds the audio file lasts. And no, your "blazingly fast descent" fantasy won't save you, as they are going by the correct timeline, therefore they also mean much more than a minute when they say "few kilometres".

Ambiguous sentence construction. This could mean the Doppler signature is representitive of a sudden impact of the probe, or a Doppler signature that indicated the toggling of the transmitter, a signal used to indicate the landing reference point.

If Dr. Bird had stated "The Doppler signature clearly indicates an impact occurred at 13:45 CET", or better yet, if they showed a reproduction of the frequency verses time, you would have a clear case.

Meanwhile, I can still argue Huygens was blighly sitting on the ground, waiting for the accelerometers to quit showing an acceleration, until a pre-determined time-out forced Huygens to sample the landing impact sensors and penetrometer.

I should also point out, again, that the radio astronomers monitoring this Doppler signal, which was much stronger than expected, from the earth, did not detect the signature of either the deployment of the final parachute or the landing. However they did observe that the initial velocity was 35hz; ~5m/s greater than expected, and the velocity discrepancy continued to increase...how much? how much? how much? If the number I hear on the TV was correct (2khz), it was over 250m/s.

I can live with those numbers.

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jwj

It's ok not to know.

I see you still haven't quite got to grips with what an accelerometer is measuring. Sat on the surface they would already be reading zero.

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"I come from London, a small village on Mars just outside the capital Wibble."
Captain Edmund Blackadder

We played with some numbers on this: The ESA stated that the terminal velocity was 1.5 m/s. The 63 second audio radar file indicates that an acceleration occured during the last 8 seconds, during which time the velocity increased by a factor of 5. In order for this to be possible, the velocity had to be about 0.5 m/s when this final acceleration occurred. A descent rate of 0.5 meters per second places the probe no higher than 0.5*(8^2*1.5)+63*0.5 = 79.5 meters when the 63 second radar track started.

Do I believe these numbers? I think they might be close - within a factor of two or three. (Remember, I think the speed of light changes as well, throwing all of the measurements off.) I think it is clear that during the first 25 seconds the radar lock was ambiguous - the probe did not descent two powers of ten in magnitude in 0.7 seconds. The acceleration at the end constrains the velocity during most of this period to less than half the 1.5 m/s number that the ESA reported as the impact velocity.

Notice that stretching the time scale doesn't make things any better, given the absolute constraint that the final velocity must be greater than the velocity prior to the acceleration that occurred during the final 8 seconds. So "The last few kilometers" has to be taken with a grain of salt. The "last few meters" is more consistent with the data.

edit - calculation

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jwj

It's ok not to know.

Two kinds of accelerometers: Those designed to measure Static (constant) and Dynamic (changing) accelerations. An accelerometer calibrated to measure the forces of winds on Titan must first subtract the gravimetric force (which is constant) and then assume the balance of the force is due to changes in the wind. Likewise rotational accelerations, which can be either constant or changing.

If the gravimetric force is not according to Newton, and is greater than expected, this constant vector could be interpreted as a constant acceleration, either due to constantly changing wind or a constant rotation, depending upon the orientation of the accelerometers measuring this force.

We have been told that the velocity of the wind decreased at a nearly constant rate, we have been told a similar story about the rotational velocity, and either/or both could be misinterpretations of a greater-than-expected acceleration due to gravity.

Remember that the first reconstructions of the descent charted all of the wind movement in one direction, but this was not just to simplify the calculations, as has been inferred: This was because any other interpretation required a very complex agreement between the rotational and the horizonal velocities: Movement in any other direction without affecting the balance observed in the rotating accelerometers would require exact 'banking' into each turn at a rate comenserate with the rate of rotation. The "hairpin" turn and swinging descibed by the imaging team, and reversal of the direction of the probe cannot be consistent with the accelerations describe by the descent profilers. Not even using jerry-rigged physics.

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jwj

It's ok not to know.

Doesn't the wind do that on earth and venus? Get calmer the closer to the surface?

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Feynman
>~~~~<
Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

Your point is well taken. If you have a very high resolution screen, you can see the detail in this Space Canada image (scroll down and click on the landing mosiac). The Heat shield is on the right, and the blue lines point to where the are linear 'soot' channels that follow the pleats of the thermal blanket to the edges of the crater. The center gathering ring is obvious, but this picture does not tell the whole story: The layout is completely wrong!

Huygens was not rotating while these images were taken, it was mostly swinging back and forth, taking pictures again and again of the same scene. Tomasko thinks it change directions while rotating, but I think the motion is almost completely a pendulum.

The terrain in the set of images is at least four different pictures of the same scene! The "Telephone pole" cracking patterns in the upper lefthand corner are the same identical cracks near the upper middle, scaled up by about 108%. Notice the bulb feature at the bottom of the telephone pole in the upper left not seen in the smaller, more centered image. that is because the scene is dynamic, changing.

And there is more: The Fremont rock art in the lower left fits right over the telephone pole. What is happening, is that when the heat shield hit the surface of Titan, it caused the cracking. A layer of dust than popped up and coated the scene (Some of the dust scattering is seen in the lower right hand corner, but remember, this is really the same part of the image as the telephone pole and rock art.) After the dust settled, it either viberated off some of the image, or it was wisked off with the remaining seams of the tattered lefthand side of the thermal blanket. I really don't know if the image of the 'Arrow' is real, or a dust shadow - jpegs are hard to interpret.

Finally, the images of the ghostly heatshield are snuggled right up next to the arrow and overlay some of the telephone pole, when the whole scene is put together properly. Again, the scene has changed and very few of the lower level details make it all the was through to this forth set of images.

I wish there was a way I could show this dynamically changing scene on the internet - we haven't figured out how to. But if you will PM me your snail mail address, I will send you a set of transparent overlays that is easy to assemble, and you can convince yourself what I just discribed is real.

Likewise, anyone else - this is not a drill.

Edit: - Better image of Titan Mosaic - thanks O

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jwj

It's ok not to know.

Jerry: I suggest you get your own webspace to promote your fallacies rather than keep on corrupting Wikipedia pages with your fanciful notions. This is now getting way beyond a joke.

If that picture comparison is part of your so called 'evidence' then I also suggest you see an optitian

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By asking questions we sometimes get the wrong answers, from wrong answers we learn to ask the right questions.

A REMINDER (a few posts ago):

The answer I gave:

And his answer to that:

1. I cannot account for more than 20-30 minutes of meaningful radar data. (time now changed from a couple minutes to 20-30 minutes)

2. Why hasn't this radar verses time plot been released? (the "strong" argument to support his theory)...

Jerry, releasing the data will not change the altitude values from the radar! The only thing you can do now is change once more your theory (say for example that you expect 50 minutes of data), or imply that I am lying... The easiest thing is to admit that you are wrong. Finally

The They laughed at Galileo too-argument.
Again a claim without support from evidence: there was a community of researchers in Europe that did not discount Galilei's discoveries and actually checked for themselves, building their own telescopes and doing observations.

And the results of Michelson-Morley's experiment were not discounted: they entered the body of evidence dealing with optical phenomena.

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papageno


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