- Jul 11, 2007
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I always found different planetary atmospheres quite intriguing, even though I am not a meteorological expert. What is its atmospheric composition? How about it’s atmospheric pressure? The temperature? and what of other planetary factors such as its gravitational force, the amount of light and so forth?I want to share some sounds and videos of the Huygen’s space probe that landed on Saturn’s moon Titan back in 2005. I am totally amazed at this large moon (about 0.4 the diameter of the Earth). It has an atmosphere of about 98% Nitrogen like the earth and trace amounts of methane making its sky look rather orange. They claim the lighting is about as bright as 10 minutes past earth’s sunset, if you can imagine that. The pressure is surprisingly about 1.5 times that of the earth’s atmosphere, so it is a little thicker, in spite of the fact that the gravity is closer to that of the moon’s (much less than the earth’s). And it is much COLDER! The surface temp was a whopping –290º F! I think the coldest it gets on the earth (and rarely) is about –100º F.As a matter of fact, the gravity is so low, and the air so thick, that it is said that an astronaut wearing arm wings could flap and fly through its air.Here’s the first link with and the actual acoustic sounds of the Huygen’s space probe as it lunged thru the atmosphere. You can hear the forceful winds rushing by like a jet as the probe had its heat shields and parachutes to slow the descent. You are going to hear the actual sounds of Titan’s atmosphere in other words!http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/sa...ecent_short.wavHere’s an animation of the Huygen’s probe coming from the Cassini space craft and what transpired as it landed onto the surface. I think playing that sound track along with the animation would be very inspiring to say the least as the probe parachutes its way thru the thick atmosphere.http://www.windows.ucar.edu/space_missions...escent_nasa.movAnd here’s some of its instrument monitor sounds---- sounds melodic actually! If you are patient to see the entire video, you can see it mapping out its surface as it gets closer, and the last frame shows the actual rocks (I believe they were mostly ices) on the surface after it landed. It looks barren like a dessert with an orange sky!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SedRrGuT8KgEnjoy!
