First picture from Titan

Not too smoggy ... thanks!

Boring. (No, seriously I'm very excited.)

Got wood?

I really hope they sent better imaging equipment than what is shown here.

Good job, EU!!!!

... it's a looooooooooooonnnnnng way away--not much light. Let's hope they can be computer-enhanced.

Cheers.

Tee-hee!

I was hoping it was full of hot chicks:

Yay!

that's what came to my mind, too. :-)

this will determine that....

Maybe if we send Halliburton there?

the other candidate or Titan, will involve creating an atmosphere that will be conducive to life... and it will not be instantaneous hence not a line of work that Halliburton will get involved in.

You need CO2 and other green house gases generators and people williing to live in an extremely hostile place to run it.

Why would you want to develop Titan? Think of all the hydrocarbons in the area... and other potencial energy sources... but still this will not be for Exxon or Halliburton to do it.

...is "Titan" by Stephen Baxter. It's about a manned (and womanned) mission to Saturn's largest moon using souped-up space shuttles. And then right after the mission is launched, things politically start to go all to hell on Earth, sort of like what is happening now with the Bushies. And so the follow-up mission, the one that is supposed to follow them to the Saturn system and bring them back, never launches, and they're on their own.

I've probably read about a thousand science-fiction novels in my life. An average of one every two weeks, that's about 25 per year, in 40 years, that's about a thousand. So I feel that my opinion is worth something when I say that's one of the best ones I've ever read.

Ron

P.S. -- Thanks for posting the picture. And yes, it does look like Mars.

Does water or liquid cause the spread of rocks in that way? Are there other ways for that pattern to evolve? Anyone know!!

This is one of the first raw images returned by the ESA Huygens probe during its successful descent. It was taken from an altitude of 16.2 kilometres with a resolution of approximately 40 metres per pixel. It apparently shows short, stubby drainage channels leading to a shoreline.



http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/SEMCXM71Y3E_1.html

I wonder where they are. :+

You're fast...!

Am watching the Science Channel now. Mars was impressive, but this is the most important development in space exploration I can remember since the moon landing in the sixties!

So incredible!