Radio Telescopes 'Save the Day,' Produce Data on Titan's Winds
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 22:06:14 GMT, robert casey
wrote:
Radio Telescopes "Save the Day," Produce Data on Titan's Winds
In what some scientists termed "a surprising, almost miraculous
turnabout," radio telescopes, including major facilities of the
National
Science Foundation's National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO),
have provided data needed to measure the winds
encountered by the Huygens spacecraft as it descended through the
atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan last month -- measurements feared
lost
because of a communication error between Huygens and its "mother ship"
Cassini.
Will they be able to extract the missing pictures and other
data lost because of the Cassini receiver that wasn't turned on?
Or is the signal to noise ratio not good enough?
If I'm not mistaken, the only data that was initially lost was the
wind doppler information. All the other data was broadcast on two
different channels.
Doug
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