Huygens is alive

Stargazer · 01-14-2005

http://planetary.org/news/2005/huygens_blog.html

According to this blog, the Huygens just started transmitting its carrier signal. This blog will be updated, one hopes, frequently as things unfold. More info, as usual, on these sites:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html

Tormod · 01-14-2005

I am watching the live TV broadcasts from ESA and they just said that Huygens appear to have landed, and data from at least one scientific instrument has been found in the signals from the probe.

infamous · 01-14-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tormod

I am watching the live TV broadcasts from ESA and they just said that Huygens appear to have landed, and data from at least one scientific instrument has been found in the signals from the probe.

Outstanding!!!

infamous · 01-14-2005

I have this feeling that we are about to learn some wonderful things, I can't prove it, I just have this feeling. Maybe we could call it faith.

Stargazer · 01-14-2005

Not so much faith, since we now know that the probe has landed and we know that science data is coming in right now. No doubt will we learn new things, hardly unexpected. I'm not sure why it's a faith.

infamous · 01-14-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Not so much faith, since we now know that the probe has landed and we know that science data is coming in right now. No doubt will we learn new things, hardly unexpected. I'm not sure why it's a faith.

Future events Stargazer; I'm speaking here about future events that bring with them new information. If I believed that we were to fail, I think you could call that a lack of faith in the program, wouldn't you??

Stargazer · 01-14-2005

Not if you believed that you would get new info despite a likely failure. I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. It's not a faith that we will learn new things about Titan now when we know it was successful. It's very likely.

infamous · 01-14-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Not if you believed that you would get new info despite a likely failure. I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. It's not a faith that we will learn new things about Titan now when we know it was successful. It's very likely.

Getting any new information would mean that it wasn't a failure, at least in the total sense of the word. My only point here is, faith will wait for proof. If there is no faith, there is no waiting.

Stargazer · 01-14-2005

I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't have faith in the success or failure of the probe before it even entered the atmosphere, for example. I just knew that it was built to do exactly that, and that it was released on the right trajectory and so on. So I was pretty sure it would be successful. This is not faith, though, since I thought faith was something that was not based on evidence or reason.