Five years ago today, on January 14th, 2005, NASA’s Cassini probe at Saturn raced past Titan and deployed ESA’s Huygens probe to descend into that moon’s murky atmosphere. The probe was designed to only last a couple hours, long enough to parachute slowly down through the atmosphere, hopefully survive the impact on the ground, and then report what it saw at the surface for a few minutes before its batteries died or it sunk in the muck or who knows what. After months of analyzing the results, the scientists released these two astounding videos showing what this strange world looked like.
These two videos are not simulations. This is the actual data, including actual images, rendered in a way to show you every thing simultaneously as it happened.
1. This 5-minute video collects the actual pictures that were taken by Huygens during the descent and creates a virtual movie out of them. With narration describing the descent (so turn up your volume!), you should first watch this video to get a sense of what was happening during the descent, and then continue to the real killer item below
NASA JPL’s page on the video, with description and download links: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/videodetails/?videoID=127
direct link to Quicktime video (15 MB): http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/pia08118-320-cc.mov
Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLfiRI7ZuGU&hd=1
2. Here’s the one that this blog posting is really about. This is an absolutely incredible view of all of the data that came back from Huygens during the descent. You can watch it all the way through and still not fully absorb all the types of information it is presenting to you. Truly a tour de force in scientific data visualization, and possibly the most amazing video I’ve ever seen in my life.
NASA JPL’s page on the video, with download links and description of all the minute screen elements: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/videodetails/?videoID=126
direct link to smaller Quicktime video (11 MB): http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/PIA08117.mov
direct link to larger Quicktime video (157 MB): http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/PIA08117HiRes.mov
The smaller 11 MB video is barely legible, so I strongly encourage you to make the effort to download the larger 157 MB video (run the download overnight or something). VLC works great for Quicktime MOV playback. If you can’t get any of these downloads to work, there’s a version on Youtube but it’s hard to make out the details. Further, with a downloaded file you can play it in slow motion to better see what’s happening, especially during the first few seconds. Make sure you have your sound turned up for this one as well, because not only do they pack the visual frame with info, they actually use sound to convey some information too!
A more complete collection of results from the mission can be found at their CHARM site — “Cassini-Huygens Analysis and Results from the Misson”. You’ll find a series of PDF slideshows that summarize what they’ve learned about the Saturnian system, and the presentations are frankly breathtaking in how beautifully they present the data and the new questions that have arisen (such as this PDF).
Enjoy!