Click here for the Quicktime movie.
This is one of the best videos I’ve ever seen assembled from space exploration data. Someone deserves special credit for the concept and editing. Using the same beep-boops you get from slot machines is a riot.
This movie, built with data collected during the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe on Jan. 14, 2005, shows the operation of the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer camera during its descent and after touchdown [on Saturn’s moon, Titan]. The camera was funded by NASA.
The almost four-hour-long record of the descent is shown in less than five minutes. That’s 40 times the actual speed up to landing and 100 times the actual speed thereafter.
Read all the options at the download page to make an appropriate choice. It explains all the things happening onscreen during the descent.
Instead of streaming, I right-clicked at the lower image and downloaded the file > imported to iTunes > played full-screen with Front Row. Dynamite!
JPL/NASA home page is here.
More funds should be put in probes like this than some half-assed trip to the moon. Just why are we sending a few people to the moon or even Mars in tin cans again? We don’t have the funding or technology for permanent settlements, or even serious research. I read one study that suggest moon dust is so abrasive it would blow air lock seals and grind down metals in a few weeks. It’s not like you can boost a battleship up there, just a flimsy aluminum and composite can. Yes I heard all that adventurous spirit crap, but we’re a long way from Star Trek.
I totally agree with you, it’s one of the best videos ever made of a probe’s descent!
I fully hope to see more of these in the future, with future missions to Mars, Venus and possibly Europa.
And I also want to see people on the Moon again. One reason why we’re far from Star Trek is that instead of investing in space to benefit all mankind we only invest in wars to benefit a few…..