Huygens
The Huygens space probe has sent back its first set of data about Saturn's largest moon, Titan, after landing successfully say space scientists.
Isn't that just brilliant?? We've managed to fly a probe about the size of a Peugeot 206 all the way to Saturn, which is between 1.2 to 1.5 billion kilometers away from earth, uncouple it from its mother ship and land it safely on Titan. It started sending signals back to earth at about 10.30 GMT this morning.
I was born a little over 2 years before the moon landings. When I first went to school there were no pocket calculators or computers. I remember the first guy in my school to get a digital watch, Andy Tomms was his name. It had an LED display that only lit up when you pressed a little button. We'd all crowd round in awe saying press it again, press it again as the little red numbers glowed dimly. Anyone under 35 will think I'm mad about now. My first home computer, and it doesn't really merit the term, was a Sinclair ZX 81 (though my mate Martin had a ZX 80 that I had used). The ZX 81 had 1K of memory. Really!! 1K. (The youngsters are now thinking that I've really gone ga ga). Yet you could get a chess programme for it. And it gave you a proper game as well. This was only 22 or 23 years ago and now we've got this thing out in the far reaches of our solar system, doing all sorts of boffin science stuff, which we'll all be able to read about soon. The Huygens website which will publish the information is here.
My great hero, Bill Hicks used to end his shows thus..
Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would do many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.
Wouldn't that be just great?
Isn't that just brilliant?? We've managed to fly a probe about the size of a Peugeot 206 all the way to Saturn, which is between 1.2 to 1.5 billion kilometers away from earth, uncouple it from its mother ship and land it safely on Titan. It started sending signals back to earth at about 10.30 GMT this morning.
I was born a little over 2 years before the moon landings. When I first went to school there were no pocket calculators or computers. I remember the first guy in my school to get a digital watch, Andy Tomms was his name. It had an LED display that only lit up when you pressed a little button. We'd all crowd round in awe saying press it again, press it again as the little red numbers glowed dimly. Anyone under 35 will think I'm mad about now. My first home computer, and it doesn't really merit the term, was a Sinclair ZX 81 (though my mate Martin had a ZX 80 that I had used). The ZX 81 had 1K of memory. Really!! 1K. (The youngsters are now thinking that I've really gone ga ga). Yet you could get a chess programme for it. And it gave you a proper game as well. This was only 22 or 23 years ago and now we've got this thing out in the far reaches of our solar system, doing all sorts of boffin science stuff, which we'll all be able to read about soon. The Huygens website which will publish the information is here.
My great hero, Bill Hicks used to end his shows thus..
Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would do many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.
Wouldn't that be just great?
posted by phylos @ 19:12
1 Comments:
True, however the petrol I put in my car now probably comes from Saudi Arabia. It cost what, 80p a litre? Saudi is about 5000k way from the UK. Assuming the same ratio of costs, and an average distance from earth of 1.35bill k, a litre of petrol from Titan would be about £216,000,000. I think I see a problem.
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