Scientists have released the first topo map of Titan.
Scientists have released the first topo map of Titan.
Whereas Earth’s tallest mountain towers nearly 9 kilometers above sea level, Titan’s topographic variations are mild: Its highest point is just half a kilometer above the mean and its lowest just 1.7 kilometers below.
Overall the detail here is not very great. None of the instruments on Cassini can see anything smaller than a half kilometer, about 1,500 feet, so the data doesn’t really show us the rough details. Moreover, the best data is spotty, as it has been accumulated by about a hundred Cassini fly-bys, rather than systematically by an orbiting spacecraft.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Scientists have released the first topo map of Titan.
Whereas Earth’s tallest mountain towers nearly 9 kilometers above sea level, Titan’s topographic variations are mild: Its highest point is just half a kilometer above the mean and its lowest just 1.7 kilometers below.
Overall the detail here is not very great. None of the instruments on Cassini can see anything smaller than a half kilometer, about 1,500 feet, so the data doesn’t really show us the rough details. Moreover, the best data is spotty, as it has been accumulated by about a hundred Cassini fly-bys, rather than systematically by an orbiting spacecraft.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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