Predictions for 2008...and beyond

[Jerry]

It has been an interesting year: An extremely brilliant supernova type Ia was observed in near cosmic space with an exceptionally long lightcurve. It was also revealed (via the planetary data system) that the descent profile derived for the Huygens probe did not use the altimeter, sonic or accelerometer data as planned to reconstruct the descent profile of Huygens. This is a stunning admission that the indicators designed to keep track of the probe were ignored.

We also have the close-ups of the two-faced moon Iapetus, which look for all-the-world like melting snow near the fringes and extending into the white side along the equatorial band. All of these are necessary predictions of the theory that Newtonian-derived masses for objects are not correct, and not correct by a long shot as the distance increase from a massive body like the sun.

The source of the interior forces of Enceladus remains a mystery – gravitational and radiative energy sources cannot fully explain the high temperature out-gassing. This is not a problem, if Enceladus has a much denser core than Newtonian gravity determinations allows.

There are also a few 2006 predictions that are still pending. Did New Horizon’s get a greater gravitational boost from Jupiter than expected? Did The Messenger Probe receive less gravitational braking in the Venus fly-by? Messenger’s post fly-by correction was made three weeks after the fly-by than planned. It is rare for system planners to change a scheduled burn unless the coarse of the probe is seriously deviated from expectations. On the other hand, New horizon’s coasted for more than three months before a coarse correction. In both cases, the mission navigators must know whether or not the gravitational assists netted the expected results. To the best of my knowledge, this information has not been released.

Gravity waves have still not been observed, and more possible sources of Dark Matter have been eliminated. Stardust reveal yet another comet with high terrestrial content; weighing in against the ‘dirty snowball’ model for comets once again.

So what should 2008 reveal?

First and foremost on the docket is the Phoenix Mars probe. Phoenix is the first non-airbag protected probe since Beagle and the Polar Lander failed; and fingers are crossed. According to the theory, Mars is about 14% more dense than Newtonian predictions, but this is mitigated in several ways. The true interior of Mars is more differentiated than estimated, so the surface gravity is not 14% greater-than-expected. Also the burning of propellant during the descent will net greater momentum differentials. The results will be totally confusing to mission analysts: Like the Huygens mission to Titan, the accelerometer and Doppler measurments of total force will disagree, and like Spirit, Opportunity, Pathfinder and the Viking Mars probes, there will be gaps the reconstructed descent profile.

Cassini will continue to produce amazing puzzles: Saturn’s moons are generally composed of fairly thin layers of ice on rocky cores. There have been hints that at least one of them has a magnetic core; and this will likely be true of other moons as well. The surface composition of Titan will continue to elude mission scientists, unless they include aluminum silicates and other sands and clays typically found on the Earth in the possible list of components.

The Messenger Probe will track unusual gravity anomalies on Mercury: Elevated regions will appear to be composed of much lighter materials than the average surface density. Chasma or valleys will pose striking positive anomalies – appearing much more dense than the mean surface density. Both of these observations are not real, but the result of using orbiting probes to determine the mass of the surface, but not taking into account the change in the orbital path caused by the proximity of Mercury to the sun. Conversely, Cassini will map evidence of very dense mountains and under-dense lowlands in the moons of Saturn, just as Galileo observed in the moons of Jupiter. Saturns moons will be a factor of two more curious (gravitationally speaking) than Jupiter.

Stardust will revisit Tempel 2 in the near future, revealing what Deep Impact really stirred up. If we are able to see where the probe impacted, it will not reveal the deep stadium-sized gaping penetration, but a much broader, very shallow crater. Tempel 2, like most solar objects, is a hard rock coated with icy dust.

Finally, we will continue to occasionally observe locally very long lightcurved supernovae that are more brilliant ‘Ia type’ than expected. As bigger telescopes come on line, another trend will surface: As more and more of the Ia types found at great distances are observed, it will be realized extinction factors have been grossly under estimated, meaning virtually all of the most distant supernova we observe today are much brighter than the local sample. After the lightcurves of this emerging sample of less luminous distance events are corrected for time dilation corrections, they will appear to have very short lightcurves, on average, much shorter than the local same. This is not evidence that supernova are evolving, but evidence that both the extinction estimates and the time dilation corrections are wrong.

[antoniseb]

Thank you for much more realistic predictions than GLP gives.

[dgavin]

Here is a realistic prediction too.

In 2008 Black Holes will really suck. . .

All kidding aside, will be intresting to see how some of these will pan out. They seem more like 'Educated Guesses' then Predictions.

[KaiYeves]

I will certainly be watching Phoenix.
Will the MERs keep on trucking?
Closer to home, how will the development of SpaceShipTwo progress?

[MaDeR]

(...)

You "predictions" all are repeats or extrapolations of already happened things.

Care to share something completely new, predicted by your favorite ATM theories?

If we are able to see where the probe impacted, it will not reveal the deep stadium-sized gaping penetration, but a much broader, very shallow crater.

Define "broad" and "shallow". What deep and dimensions of crater would cause you to admit mistake in this vague "prediction"?

[tusenfem]

It was also revealed (via the planetary data system) that the descent profile derived for the Huygens probe did not use the altimeter, sonic or accelerometer data as planned to reconstruct the descent profile of Huygens. This is a stunning admission that the indicators designed to keep track of the probe were ignored.

Interesting, I have a paper here by Bobby Kazeminejad et al. titled "Huygens' entry and descent through Titan's atmoshpere ..." published in Planetary and Sapce Science (2007, vol 55, pg. 1845-1876), where they use the HASI and other data and models to investigate the descent.

A short quote from the concluding remarks (my bolding):

The Huygens probe mission provided data of high quality that allowed an accurate reconstruction of the vehicle's entry and descent trajectory as well as its roll rate profile prior to atmospheric entry and throughout the entire descent phase.
Within the framework of the Huygens DTWG, an algorithm was developed and implemented to reconstruct the trajectory based o all available probe measurements.

Quickly scanning through the text shows that e.g. at entry phase they use the following intstruments:
- accelerometers on HASI
- Doppler wind experiment DWE
- Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer DISR

Seems to me you got your sources wrong on this point.

[R.A.F.]

Like the Huygens mission to Titan, the accelerometer and Doppler measurments of total force will disagree, and like Spirit, Opportunity, Pathfinder and the Viking Mars probes, there will be gaps the reconstructed descent profile.

For cryin' out loud, Jerry give it up. You lost that debate years ago. To bring it up again in the "guise" of a prediction just makes you look silly.

[Mister Earl]

It has been an interesting year: An extremely brilliant supernova type Ia was observed in near cosmic space with an exceptionally long lightcurve. It was also revealed (via the planetary data system) that the descent profile derived for the Huygens probe did not use the altimeter, sonic or accelerometer data as planned to reconstruct the descent profile of Huygens. This is a stunning admission that the indicators designed to keep track of the probe were ignored.

1.) Do you have documentation to support this?

We also have the close-ups of the two-faced moon Iapetus, which look for all-the-world like melting snow near the fringes and extending into the white side along the equatorial band. All of these are necessary predictions of the theory that Newtonian-derived masses for objects are not correct, and not correct by a long shot as the distance increase from a massive body like the sun.

2.) Please provide source declaring the "white areas" to be snow.
3.) Please provide the source of the "necessary predictions".
4.) Please clarify that last sentance.

The source of the interior forces of Enceladus remains a mystery – gravitational and radiative energy sources cannot fully explain the high temperature out-gassing. This is not a problem, if Enceladus has a much denser core than Newtonian gravity determinations allows.

5.) You reference forces but do not describe them. What forces?

There are also a few 2006 predictions that are still pending. Did New Horizon’s get a greater gravitational boost from Jupiter than expected? Did The Messenger Probe receive less gravitational braking in the Venus fly-by? Messenger’s post fly-by correction was made three weeks after the fly-by than planned. It is rare for system planners to change a scheduled burn unless the coarse of the probe is seriously deviated from expectations. On the other hand, New horizon’s coasted for more than three months before a coarse correction. In both cases, the mission navigators must know whether or not the gravitational assists netted the expected results. To the best of my knowledge, this information has not been released.

6.) What predictions? From who? Can you reference these more specifically?
7.) You state that it is rare to change the date of a burn. Based on what? References?

Gravity waves have still not been observed, and more possible sources of Dark Matter have been eliminated. Stardust reveal yet another comet with high terrestrial content; weighing in against the ‘dirty snowball’ model for comets once again.

8.) Source? Define "Terrestrial content". Give me your definition of "Dirty snowball".

So what should 2008 reveal?

First and foremost on the docket is the Phoenix Mars probe. Phoenix is the first non-airbag protected probe since Beagle and the Polar Lander failed; and fingers are crossed. According to the theory, Mars is about 14% more dense than Newtonian predictions, but this is mitigated in several ways. The true interior of Mars is more differentiated than estimated, so the surface gravity is not 14% greater-than-expected. Also the burning of propellant during the descent will net greater momentum differentials. The results will be totally confusing to mission analysts: Like the Huygens mission to Titan, the accelerometer and Doppler measurments of total force will disagree, and like Spirit, Opportunity, Pathfinder and the Viking Mars probes, there will be gaps the reconstructed descent profile.

9.) Whose theory says Mars is 14% more dense?
10.) Do you understand the term "Landing ellipse"? Do you know why it is an ellipse?

Cassini will continue to produce amazing puzzles: Saturn’s moons are generally composed of fairly thin layers of ice on rocky cores. There have been hints that at least one of them has a magnetic core; and this will likely be true of other moons as well. The surface composition of Titan will continue to elude mission scientists, unless they include aluminum silicates and other sands and clays typically found on the Earth in the possible list of components.

11.) You seem to make the assumption that if something isn't expected, it isn't looked for. Do you have any documentation, other than your own opinion, that these results are biased?

The Messenger Probe will track unusual gravity anomalies on Mercury: Elevated regions will appear to be composed of much lighter materials than the average surface density. Chasma or valleys will pose striking positive anomalies – appearing much more dense than the mean surface density. Both of these observations are not real, but the result of using orbiting probes to determine the mass of the surface, but not taking into account the change in the orbital path caused by the proximity of Mercury to the sun. Conversely, Cassini will map evidence of very dense mountains and under-dense lowlands in the moons of Saturn, just as Galileo observed in the moons of Jupiter. Saturns moons will be a factor of two more curious (gravitationally speaking) than Jupiter.

12.) If the results do not show what you are suggesting here, would you go on record admitting you were wrong?

Stardust will revisit Tempel 2 in the near future, revealing what Deep Impact really stirred up. If we are able to see where the probe impacted, it will not reveal the deep stadium-sized gaping penetration, but a much broader, very shallow crater. Tempel 2, like most solar objects, is a hard rock coated with icy dust.

13.) What gives you the impression that the standard cometary model is incorrect? Do you have any supporting data, here, or is this a matter of opinion?

Finally, we will continue to occasionally observe locally very long lightcurved supernovae that are more brilliant ‘Ia type’ than expected. As bigger telescopes come on line, another trend will surface: As more and more of the Ia types found at great distances are observed, it will be realized extinction factors have been grossly under estimated, meaning virtually all of the most distant supernova we observe today are much brighter than the local sample. After the lightcurves of this emerging sample of less luminous distance events are corrected for time dilation corrections, they will appear to have very short lightcurves, on average, much shorter than the local same. This is not evidence that supernova are evolving, but evidence that both the extinction estimates and the time dilation corrections are wrong.

14.) If the data that comes next year do not match your predictions, would you be willing to go on record, stating your predictions were wrong?

[KaiYeves]

I don't think this is ATM. More like what any group of good friends does as the year winds down.

[Jerry]

Quickly scanning through the text shows that e.g. at entry phase they use the following intstruments:
- accelerometers on HASI
- Doppler wind experiment DWE
- Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer DISR

Seems to me you got your sources wrong on this point.

You have to read the fine print. They only used true accelerormeter readings for the first ten-twenty minutes; after that they used uncalibrated flutter in the gain control. The DWE experiment failed completely - they used the doppler from surface (on earth) receivers; but ONLY to determine the frequency shift, they did not use x-y positioning from earth-based triangulation.

They said they used all the available data, which is not true: They didn't use the radar or sonar data! That is not mentioned in the article, neither is the fact that the data that they did use did NOT agree with the radar ground truthing, which they dismissed competely. (See the README and other important notes in the Planetary data system). Frankly the article is unprofessionally misleading.

[tusenfem]

You have to read the fine print. They only used true accelerormeter readings for the first ten-twenty minutes; after that they used uncalibrated flutter in the gain control. The DWE experiment failed completely - they used the doppler from surface (on earth) receivers; but ONLY to determine the frequency shift, they did not use x-y positioning from earth-based triangulation.

They said they used all the available data, which is not true: They didn't use the radar or sonar data! That is not mentioned in the article, neither is the fact that the data that they did use did NOT agree with the radar ground truthing, which they dismissed competely. (See the README and other important notes in the Planetary data system). Frankly the article is unprofessionally misleading.

There is no fine print in the paper, there is only normal print. So I quote from sectiont 2.2 Descent input data

The descent phase reconstruction is based on the following data sets:
- Atmospheric in situ measurements from the HASI pressure and temperature measurements corrected for dynamical effects by the instrument team (Fulchignoni et al. 2005)
- Mole fraction measurements of Titan's major constituents from the gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer (GCMS) (Niemann et al., 2005)
- Wind measurements as derived from the Doppler shift of the probe relay signal from the DWE (Bird et al., 2005a)
- The exact time of probe surface impact measured by the impact penetrometer (ACC-I) of the surface science package (SSP) (Zarnecki et al., 2005)
- Altitude and descent speed measurements provided by the SSP acoustic sonar (API-S) and the two radar altimeter units (RAU) (Trautner, 2005)

Then the paper says later in that same section:

It should be pointed out that neither the RAU nor the SSP API-S measurements were directly incorporated into the reconstruction algorithm but wer premarily used for comparison and consistency checks.

Then they use the models with the parameters they get from the instruments and compare them with the SSP API-S measured data, which fit perfectly (Figure 13 bottom panel) and they compare it with the RAU data in Figure 14, which is rather difficult to understand, as the smooth dashed line is not from modeling but shows the 1 sigma error of the reconstructed trajectory.

And then they write something very "daring" and totally professional at the end of section 4:

The altitude discrepancy between the RAU measurements and the reconstructed trajectory has not yet been fully explained. The following facts, however, speak for a higher confidence in the DTWG model ...

And then they give their reasons.

Frankly I find this a very nice paper, and I find your interpretation of it highly unprofessional, but that might be because you are not a professional space physicist.

Up to now, all missions to planet have worked without taking changing gravity into account. One of the latest examples the perfect orbit insertion of VEX around Venus. In advance calculated burning power and duration for spacecraft braking was applied and insertion worked perfectly. You have to come up with some real evidence that gravity is changing and an explanation why e.g. Cassini was able to reach Saturn if it did not get the right gravity assist from Jupiter. Or is there a conspiracy that us space physicists are all involved in (and after obtaining a degree we have to sign a non-disclosure form)?

[djellison]

This guy operates as 'themessenger' over at my forum. He's had several warnings and suspensions regarding this issue. Finally, he dropped it. I had no idea he was giving BAUT a load of it as well. I predict that he will continue to spout unsubstatiated nonsense throughout 2008.

I challenge you, Jerry, to take the PDS data and illustrate where it is wrong, identifying how and why it has been wrongly interpreted. It's all there - and unless you're suggesting some vast ESA/NASA wide conspiracy to publish something other than that which was recorded, then you should be able to simply and clearly illustrate the actually anomaly to which you continue to refer.

It's not hard. Excel, a few .tab's - read a few .lbl's and you can prove your case in minutes.

Doug

[Jerry]

It has been an interesting year: An extremely brilliant supernova type Ia was observed in near cosmic space with an exceptionally long lightcurve. It was also revealed (via the planetary data system) that the descent profile derived for the Huygens probe did not use the altimeter, sonic or accelerometer data as planned to reconstruct the descent profile of Huygens. This is a stunning admission that the indicators designed to keep track of the probe were ignored.

1.) Do you have documentation to support this?

The documentation is in the PDS; and it is quite complete. It explains that the 'most significant bits' in the radar data were 'seemingly random' and so the corrected radar in the PDS included estimated values taken from the calculated descent profile; the radar was also recalibrated based upon balloon measurements with an identical radar transponder on Earth, but the PDS also says the radar was never reconciliated with Doppler and other data.

The article quoted by tusenfem says what systems they used to reconstruct the descent and entry, it does not spell out why they omitted obvious sources of ground truthing from the determination: Radar and sonar. I don't know why they left out the sonar. Anyone?

Nowhere in the article; or in any of the featured publications by the Huygens team will you find reference to the fact that the ground radar and sonar were not used in the reconstruction or why. The error is a little bit more than one of omission, because that was the primary function of these instruments. The reason is simple: The radar data was inconsistent with the descent profile constructed using instruments that were not designed to determine altitude.

Quote=jerry:
We also have the close-ups of the two-faced moon Iapetus, which look for all-the-world like melting snow near the fringes and extending into the white side along the equatorial band. All of these are necessary predictions of the theory that Newtonian-derived masses for objects are not correct, and not correct by a long shot as the distance increase from a massive body like the sun.

2.) Please provide source declaring the "white areas" to be snow.

Snow meaning water Ice, which at Iapetus P&T would not be snow as we know it.

3.) Please provide the source of the "necessary predictions".

I never know quite how much history to post when refering to fifty prior ATM threads.

The basic ATM concept is that the orbital path of the planets is a function of the distance of a planet or moon from massive bodies. So when we use Newtonian mechanics to determine the mass of a planet that is closer to the sun than the earth, we over estimate the mass of the planet. Likewise Newtonian mechanics under estimate the masses of objects much further than the earth from the sun.

Orbital velocities about the sun maintain the r^2 relationship because this second-order effect also changes the effective radius at any distance from the sun. There are a large number of deviations from Newtonian theory that fall out of such a relationship, such as the mountan peaks of Mars must appear to be much more dense than the surrounding terrain when there mass is calculated using orbiting probes, and this is true. Conversely chasms on Mars must generally appear to be under dense, and this is also true. Exactly the opposite must be true for Venus and it is. The prediction that the Messenger probe will expose Venus-like trends on Mercury falls out of this. Likewise when the close orbital passes of Saturn's moons by Cassini are evaluated gravimetrically, the surface gravity at the moments of closest pass will appear to be unbelievable high.

If Newtonian theory underpredicts the masses of everything in the Saturn system by at least a factor of two as I have predicted, the icy moons are only icy on the surface and they all have heavy rock and even iron cores. What you see as dark stuff in the whitesided craters of Iapetus is the surface of a moon with a mean density of >2g/cc.

Quote=Jerry:
The source of the interior forces of Enceladus remains a mystery – gravitational and radiative energy sources cannot fully explain the high temperature out-gassing. This is not a problem, if Enceladus has a much denser core than Newtonian gravity determinations allows.

5.) You reference forces but do not describe them. What forces?

One of the greatest mysteries revealed by Cassini is the 'geysers' of Enceladus near the south pole. Planetary geologists are mystified by them, and so am I. I say there is a hell of a lot more mass in Enceladus than current theory predicts, and so you have more gravitational torque, more iron core, more magnetic effects, and possible radioactive elements than a body that is 80% water has at it's disposal.

Quote=Jerry:
There are also a few 2006 predictions that are still pending. Did New Horizon’s get a greater gravitational boost from Jupiter than expected? Did The Messenger Probe receive less gravitational braking in the Venus fly-by? Messenger’s post fly-by correction was made three weeks after the fly-by than planned. It is rare for system planners to change a scheduled burn unless the coarse of the probe is seriously deviated from expectations. On the other hand, New horizon’s coasted for more than three months before a coarse correction. In both cases, the mission navigators must know whether or not the gravitational assists netted the expected results. To the best of my knowledge, this information has not been released.

6.) What predictions? From who? Can you reference these more specifically?

From me - where the predictions are is almost irrelevent since to the best of my knowledge, none of them have been confirmed - Yet. New Horizons seems to have been amazingly close to the expected path. If New Horizons did not get a greater gravitational boost from Jupiter than expected, that is a major ding in this theory. The fact that Huygens mission researchers threw out the radar data and constructed a landing profile without using it is not.

7.) You state that it is rare to change the date of a burn. Based on what?

The care that must go into the planning of each burn - coordination with the Deep Space network and such. The Messenger burn was bumped up ~three weeks; but to the best of my knowledge no one has said why.

8.) Source? Define "Terrestrial content". Give me your definition of "Dirty snowball".

Terrestrial in the sense of containing elements and molecules expected to be found in high quantities only in the inner solar system: Pyrenes, clays, aluminum silicates and iron. Only a small percent of the surface of Tempel 1 was water; and the ejecta on impact was much more 'dirt than snowball'. There have been many articles before and since Deep Impact that emphasize it was more of a 'snowy dirtball'.

9.) Whose theory says Mars is 14% more dense?

Mine.

10.) Do you understand the term "Landing ellipse"? Do you know why it is an ellipse?

Yes, and a lot of factors go into shaping it, including prior experience.

Everyone understands Mars has been difficult to land on, but most people do not know that there has never been a complete construction of a Mars probe descent without some question marks about attitudes, parachute drag factors, fuel exhaustion and so on. Almost everyone is surprised everytime I mention that 'Spirit' was within seconds of a failed mission - to the best of my knowledge this has never been officially acknowledged.

Quote:
Cassini will continue to produce amazing puzzles: Saturn’s moons are generally composed of fairly thin layers of ice on rocky cores. There have been hints that at least one of them has a magnetic core; and this will likely be true of other moons as well. The surface composition of Titan will continue to elude mission scientists, unless they include aluminum silicates and other sands and clays typically found on the Earth in the possible list of components.

11.) You seem to make the assumption that if something isn't expected, it isn't looked for. Do you have any documentation, other than your own opinion, that these results are biased?

No one expected sand on Titan, and no one is looking for it. The instrumentation was geared towards light elements - mostly water and ammonia. Very little ammonia has been found. Mostly water, light organics and "unidentified stuff". I think that on Titan that 'stuff' is everything it looks like: Sand dunes, rocks, anything you would expect to find on the surface of the Earth or Mars.

12.) If the results do not show what you are suggesting here, would you go on record admitting you were wrong?

Absolutely: I was wrong about Deep Impact; I said it would clang like a bell (I expected more Iron and less dirt.) We won't really know though, unless we get a better look at the impact crater: Is it as deep as A'Hearn and others have predicted, or did it barely mare the surface, kicking up a lot of surface dust?

I was wrong about Huygens; it did not crash, and the resulting data did not produce amazing results. But I don't think the data from Huygens was fairly evaluated, and there are unanswered questions: Why were the Deep Space Network triagulation results never published, and what happened to the promised investigative report on why Channel A failed? I think the radar data were accurate, but they were not used to construct the descent profile because they made absolutely no sense. How could they if they indicated Newton was up in the night. I didn't anticipate that reaction, and I should have.

[quote = Mr. Earl]
13.) What gives you the impression that the standard cometary model is incorrect? Do you have any supporting data, here, or is this a matter of opinion?
[/quote]
Deep Impact was a surprise in what it revealed, so are the chemicals found by Stardust; and other comet probes. But the real test will be 'New Horizons' visit to Pluto: Pluto, like most Kuiper belt objects, will also be very terrestrial.

I don't think the solar system condensed from a cloud, concentrating heavy elements near the center. Saturn is a very wet system, but the rest of the outer solar system is not.

14.) If the data that comes next year do not match your predictions, would you be willing to go on record, stating your predictions were wrong?

Well, I was right about superluminous 'type Ia' supernova. That is what started this whole mess. I don't expect much to be confirmed in 2008: No gravity waves, of course. 2011 is the big year; the Phoenix landing will no doubt be interesting; and if it is successful ,the telemetered altimeter, wind, Doppler, accelerometer and descent profile will be impossible to model. Don't be surprised if two years down the road, they come up with a descent profile that throws out some of the data, because it can't all be right. It has happened before.

[Jerry]

This guy operates as 'themessenger' over at my forum. He's had several warnings and suspensions regarding this issue. Finally, he dropped it. I had no idea he was giving BAUT a load of it as well. I predict that he will continue to spout unsubstatiated nonsense throughout 2008.

Your forum is an invaluable resource; perhaps made more so because you do not allow theories that are far afield. The ATM board used to be a good place to float new ideas. I generally only post here now when there is new evidence relative to what has been hypothezed in the past.

I challenge you, Jerry, to take the PDS data and illustrate where it is wrong, identifying how and why it has been wrongly interpreted. It's all there - and unless you're suggesting some vast ESA/NASA wide conspiracy to publish something other than that which was recorded, then you should be able to simply and clearly illustrate the actually anomaly to which you continue to refer.

Wrong to throw out radar data and use the thermometers to determine the descent profile? That is a judgement call: The altimeter data did not make sense; neither did the accelerometer data unless they concluded that the probe rotated backwards, opposite the aerodynamic construction. That is a judgement call too.

I have studied the drawings of the construction of the vanes on Huygens, and I don't see how it could rotate backwards unless the parachutes were badly fouled, which would have screwed up the descent profile in every other way.

That said, your challenge is reasonable. I'll see what I can do.
[/QUOTE]

[tusenfem]

Jerry, you are totally twisting reality, as I explained in the message above. I have serious doubts that you have read Kazeminejad et al.'s paper.

Also, I have been looking at the PDS website, but I cannot find the documents that you are referring to. Can you give the link to where your claims are written down?

[djellison]

unless they concluded that the probe rotated backwards,

It DID rotate backwards - we know it did - the images confirm it. There is no judgement call here. No debate. No doubt. A fouled shackle, something like that - we're not entirely sure why - but we're entirely sure that it did. Fact. Please don't tell us that you're questioning that? It's the whole reason that amateurs were able to put mosaics together quicker than the DISR team. The DISR team were trying to stitch everything the wrong way because of the probe rotation being wrong. The amateurs, with no presumed direction, just stitched what they saw.

Also - explain - if your theory that gravity is all wrong is to have ANY credability - how Cassini SOI worked, how the entire Cassini primary tour using multiple Titan flybys has not only worked as designed, but is being extended. If gravity was wrong - all this stuff would have fallen apart, massively. Ditto any deep space spacecraft ever launched.

You're so far from reality on this stuff - it's not even funny. I thought you had gone past this stuff. I was very very wrong.

The Huygens data has been out for some time - and you've done nothing with it

Doug

[R.A.F.]

This guy operates as 'themessenger' over at my forum.

Where is this forum?...I'd like to visit.

I predict that he will continue to spout unsubstatiated nonsense throughout 2008.

It's not really a "prediction" when you know it's a sure thing.

[djellison]

YGPM - but it's also on my profile.

Doug

[Jerry]

Jerry, you are totally twisting reality, as I explained in the message above. I have serious doubts that you have read Kazeminejad et al.'s paper.

Also, I have been looking at the PDS website, but I cannot find the documents that you are referring to. Can you give the link to where your claims are written down?

http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/hphk_0001/AAREADME.TXT

Warnings: It should be pointed out that the reconstruction
of descent trajectory of the Huygens probe is not coherent with
the altitude profile retrieved from the Huygens radar altimeter.
Different approaches/methods for descent trajectory reconstruction
resulted in altitude and velocity profiles that show discrepancy,
not consistent with uncertainty range relevant to models and measurements. The reason for this discrepancy is at present still under investigation. Results of future analysis could imply the need to reconsolidate the trajectory.

http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/hphk_...ALIBRATION.PDF

HUYGENS HRA
Digital Altitude Data Calibration

R. Trautner


4 Introduction
The Huygens Radar Altimeters (HRAs) have provided digital altitude information during the descent of the Huygens probe. While the digital data of both radars has been acquired via the probe telemetry, the additional data acquired by HASI-PWA is only available for channel B due to the loss of the telemetry data on channel A.

The digital data has been affected by a hardware bug, which caused the upper bits of the digital 15-bit altitude word to change their logical state in a seemingly random fashion. In addition, due to the 15-bit limitation of the digital altitude word any radar data above 32767 m is affected by a register overflow. In addition to these digital data errors, the radar has been found to be sensitive to temperature changes, and is affected by systematic errors that depend on the probe altitude. The raw digital altitude data has
been processed in order to eliminate these known errors and to calibrate the measured altitude. After a first calibration using initial estimations of the radar temperatures [1,2] a temperature sensitivity analysis and data assessment showed that more accurate estimates of the radar temperature were required.

HUYGENS ATTITUDE RECONSTRUCTION
BASED ON FLIGHT ENGINEERING PARAMETERS
M. Pérez-Ayúcar
2.3. AGC – Automatic Gain Control
This telemetry parameter is the control word of the second coherent AGC loop in the digital part of the
receiver. A detailed description of the receiver chain can be found in (Popken, 2004). Reported at 8Hz, it is
proportional to the signal power received on board Cassini. The received chain B signal strength
reconstruction (Pérez-Ayúcar et al., 2005) is shown in Fig. 3. The AGC has been flight-calibrated, being the
conversion to signal-to-noise ratio Es/N0) based on the Probe Relay Test analysis.

http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/hphk_...LYSIS_2006.PDF

9.2 SPIN POST FLIGHT RECONSTRUCTION
The analysis of the spin and radial deceleration measurement has led to 2 different issues :
1- A discrepancy has been found in the RASU accelerometers distance to CoG between the flight software data (coherent with the User Manual) and an evaluation performed in the frame of the document “Probe reference data for post flight analysis”. This discrepancy and the related analysis are presented in Appendix 2. It appears that a distance error has marginally affected the spin calculation algorithm in flight. The spin measurement after correction of this error is shown in Fig. 14.

Contradictions within descent data presented.

http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/hphasi_0001/ERRATA.TXT

The mutual impedance files HASI_L2_PWAS_MIP and HASI_L2_PWAD23_MIP had some corrupted columns and some errors in timing so they have been corrected and updated. Furthermore TAB file did not correspond to the LBL file for what concern the column content.

I don't know what to make of the raw temperature and pressure files - I can't find any reference to what "some errors in timing" entails; and the data is limited to one reading every three minutes - the sampling rate was supposed to be ~ 2HZ, so there are thousands of data points unaccounted for.


http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/hphk_...REPORT_1_0.PDF

P 19

Owing to a commanding problem (which is
currently the subject of an NCR and further investigation) failing to switch on the USO
receiver, the PSA receiver for Chain A did not lock on the RF carrier signal, and Probe data
were received via Chain B only.

P 35

The Radar digital processing stage for the probe platform indicated lock at 25km, but delivered only half the true altitude value. The Radar analogue signals delivered directly to the HASI instrument were successfully interpreted there to derive the true altitude. From 16km downwards the Radar subsystem functioned correctly delivering the correct digital values for
altitude, and lock was lost as expected, at 140m.

That is three different explanations for the radar, and they are not completely consistent. In the Nature article there is a forth:

http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/hphas...NIETAL2005.PDF

The altitude represented by the red dots is measured whenever the Radar Altimeter (RA) is locked on the surface; permanent lock is maintained from 34 km down to 150 m. At higher altitudes, the green dots indicate the distances at which the signal is returned by the atmosphere.

In fairness to Fulchignonietal, they may not have even been aware the radar data is compromised.

[Jerry]

It DID rotate backwards - we know it did - the images confirm it. There is no judgement call here. No debate. No doubt. A fouled shackle, something like that - we're not entirely sure why - but we're entirely sure that it did. Fact.

According to the altitudes listed on the DISR images, the images with usable resolution range from ~16km to near ground level. But if you look closely at the 16km and 6km images, you see a nearly identical set of image rescaled less than 30%. I don't think the ESA knows either the altitude or the timing of the images; and if they do, I cannot find any documentation that spells out which images were taken first or last - they are really quite scattered. Did the probe rotate 20 degrees between frames, or 380?

The probe was supposed to create panoramic sequences, and we got nothing of the kind, even if you assume half the images were lost - The only way to get 360 degrees of reconstruction is to blur the hell out of the boundaries.

My best reconstruction involves a swinging, rather than a rotating probe - there is an identical round surface feature that is viewed from several quite severe angles. Either the terrain is extremely rugged relative to other areas if Titan Cassini has imaged, or the altitudes are much lower. By the way, Larry Soderblum first suggested that the probe was swinging.

Please don't tell us that you're questioning that? It's the whole reason that amateurs were able to put mosaics together quicker than the DISR team. The DISR team were trying to stitch everything the wrong way because of the probe rotation being wrong. The amateurs, with no presumed direction, just stitched what they saw.

Yes, we had a 360 degree construction at first too, but then we found overlaying features that ended up wrong sided to each other - a swinging probe works better; which is not consistent with the accelerometer data, unless the probe landed much sooner than expected.

Also - explain - if your theory that gravity is all wrong is to have ANY credability - how Cassini SOI worked, how the entire Cassini primary tour using multiple Titan flybys has not only worked as designed, but is being extended. If gravity was wrong - all this stuff would have fallen apart, massively. Ditto any deep space spacecraft ever launched.

It is always the assumption that the Newtonian approach is the only workable mathematical solution consistent with proven celestial navigation - but that is wrong. (that is, Newtonian with the relativistic fudge factor). The gravity anomalies and material properties popping up all over the solar system are inconsistent with Newtonian derivations. I only know that, because I started by assuming the second and third order effects are different, then went looking for them.)

The Newtonian solutions leave no reasonable explanations for the materials we are seeing on the surfaces of these distant moons while their interiors are assumed to be full of ice. Huygens returned data that tells us the surface of Titan has many of the physical and spectral properties of sand; So does Cassini, and Cassini tells us Phoebe is covered with Iron - and there is likely iron on the surface of Iapetus and other moons as well. Just wait until New Horizons gives us close-ups of Pluto: More iron rich sand, less water.

The gravity anomalies are the real keys - love numbers calculated using surface and orbital solutions of Mars are degenerative - they don't make any sense. The entire outer solar system is full of paradox - subterraining oceans on Europa; a gross positive gravity anomaly calculated on closest approach to Ganymede where there is no physical feature, none of this will make sense until the light comes on.

You're so far from reality on this stuff - it's not even funny. I thought you had gone past this stuff. I was very very wrong.

The Huygens data has been out for some time - and you've done nothing with it.

I have spent many hours trying to extract meaningful numbers from the Huygens data - As I quoted above, there are at least four published inconsistent explanations about the radar data. Which one is correct? Which one should I use? What timing corrections were made to the pressure and temperature raw data, and why?

To get the Doppler and accelerometer data to match the presumed descent profile, the model adapted by mission scientista includes a 360 degree shift in prevailing winds, when there is nothing about the atmosphere of Titan that suggests such an impossible oddity. When the principle investigators on the project reach conclusions constrained by impossible parametrics, I cannot do any more with this masticated data than point out the obvious: Something major is not understood.

[djellison]

Wow. Just Wow. There really isn't anything worth adding - twisting the truth to suit your own diabolical needs really is quite a talent.

[Maksutov]

[edit]I have spent many hours trying to extract meaningful numbers [i.e., numbers that support your particular peculiar speculations] from the Huygens data...

Alchemists spent lifetimes trying to transmute lead into gold. Their efforts were about as successful. The length of time spent on a task is not proportional to the quality of the results.

Bad archery is shooting the arrow and then trying to move the target. A lot of bad astronomy is very similar.

[Jerry]

Alchemists spent lifetimes trying to transmute lead into gold. Their efforts were about as successful. The length of time spent on a task is not proportional to the quality of the results.

Bad archery is shooting the arrow and then trying to move the target. A lot of bad astronomy is very similar.

Maksutov, you were there in 2005 when I said the radar data did not agree with the Huygens descent profile used by the ESA, and so was RAF. Look at it from my prospective:

Based upon other gravity anomalies in the solar system I concluded the moons of Saturn must be more dense than Newtonian physics allow. I didn't know exactly how this would effect the Huygens probe, because I didn't have a complete mathematical picture, but I predicted it would fall much faster than expected and likely crash. I also concluded that if it did not, the data we would see would lead to a complete revision of Newtonian physics.

While Huygens was descending, Like Dellison & others, we were watching the Earth-based doppler, and we could see that the acceleration was much greater than expected and we were thrilled, especially thrilled when the probe kept transmitting long after it would likely have crashed.

Then the data came back, and half of it was missing, and much of what was transmitted made little sense to the project scientists, so they took the time-stamped time-of-landing; which was ~2hr14mn after entry and the doppler data; and added a wind speed profile that was consistent with a purely Newtonian descent. It was the only reasonable thing to do.

What hurt me, was that in the published articles, they implied that the radar data was consistent with this purely mathematical profile; but it was not. It was only when warnings were posted in the Planetary Data System that it became obvious the actual radar data was not used in the reconstruction.

I think parts of the 'uncorrected. radar altitude readings are correct; I think the Winds on Titan were either mild or irrelavent in their effects on the Huygens doppler signature:

During the first twenty minutes, The probe fell very much faster than expected, first accelerating, the decelerating at twice the expected rate in the lower atmosphere. It landed shortly after the small parachute was deployed. Thats what was recording by the accelerometers, and that is when the radial accelerometers quit transmitting positive rotations.

From here on, the ESA used peaks in the antenna AGC (automatic gain control) to infer that the probe was rotating backwards, but this is VERY BAD PHYSICS. Automatic gain controls function at frequencies in the millisecond range, or less. The AGCs were sampled at 2Hz to provide mission engineers with the (DC) housekeeping state of the radio transmitters. You cannot use a 2Hz signal to infer frequency information about a feedback signal that is changing at a much higher frequency - any EE will tell you that: The signal will be hopelessly aliased, the peaks resulting from many frequency overlaps. What is most telling, is that the published charts depicting the rotation are cut at the point of 'landing'. If published, the data would continue to show the same type of peaks used to infer rotation before the 'landing' were still in the data after the landing.

[Jerry]

Wow. Just Wow. There really isn't anything worth adding - twisting the truth to suit your own diabolical needs really is quite a talent.

A couple of corrections: I wrote 'wind shifted 360 degrees' when I meant 180deg. A couple of the paragraphs I quoted from the Huygens' PDS entries have nothing to do with the issues I have raised, and the fact that the errata sheets exist demonstrate mission scientists are not withholding information, or conspiring to hide the truth. They are trying to interpret the data and present it in the most positive light.

There is nothing 'diabolical' about pointing out the data received from Huygens can be interpreted more than one way. ESA articles have not been straight-forward about how difficult the data is to interpret, and the number of assumptions they are making when they fit pieces of information together that do not quite fit. They are not willing to entertain the possibility that a 250 year old theory about gravity and momentum is half-baked. I expected, and I still expect the Cassini-Huygens mission to reveal more about the universe than mission scientists ever dreamed.

[Maksutov]

Maksutov, you were there in 2005 when I said the radar data did not agree with the Huygens descent profile used by the ESA, and so was RAF....

And what I said back then still applies. You have a probe descending into a new place: an atmosphere whose chemical composition we sort of know, but whose structure we can only educatedly guess about. Therefore, a shocker! The descent profile varied a bit perhaps from what was predicted, said predictions being based on minimal to nonexistent information about the physical nature of Titan's atmosphere.

Any discerned variations were due to the atmosphere, not some lack of understanding of gravitational effects. Heck, we know the Earth's atmosphere quite well but due to its instability, it's hard to predict exactly how objects will perform as they descend through it. Ever land in a jet during a thunderstorm?

To take such variations and attempt to use them as evidence that we should question fundamental physics is ludicrous.

My advice: let G and let go.

[papageno]

Maksutov, you were there in 2005 when I said the radar data did not agree with the Huygens descent profile used by the ESA, and so was RAF. Look at it from my prospective:

Based upon other gravity anomalies in the solar system I concluded the moons of Saturn must be more dense than Newtonian physics allow. I didn't know exactly how this would effect the Huygens probe, because I didn't have a complete mathematical picture, but I predicted it would fall much faster than expected and likely crash. I also concluded that if it did not, the data we would see would lead to a complete revision of Newtonian physics.

It had been explained to you then that a different mass would not have had an effect only on the descent profile in the atmosphere, but on the trajectory of the probes outside the atmosphere.

[KaiYeves]

(Gets up on chair, clears throat)
Can we get off the subject of Huygens and actually share our predictions in a friendly manner like most people do this time of year?
Thank you.
(Gets down)

[stutefish]

(Gets up on chair, clears throat)
Can we get off the subject of Huygens and actually share our predictions in a friendly manner like most people do this time of year?
Thank you.
(Gets down)

Re-read the first post in this thread. It's an against the mainstream claim, presented in the form of a prediction. Indeed, it's the same ATM claim that Jerry has made repeatedly in the past. And in this particular subforum, it's getting exactly the treatment it's supposed to get.

Actual friendly prediction-mongering such as you envision would probably go in Off-Topic Babbling, unless it was more appropriate to one of the other subforums (Astronomy, or Space Exploration, for example).

[djellison]

During the first twenty minutes, The probe fell very much faster than expected, first accelerating, the decelerating at twice the expected rate in the lower atmosphere. It landed shortly after the small parachute was deployed. Thats what was recording by the accelerometers, and that is when the radial accelerometers quit transmitting positive rotations.

I call bull on this entire paragraph. Prove it Jerry. Prove that claim with data, with graphs, with facts. This is ATM - you are obliged to do so and to date, apart from hand-waving, you've failed to do so.

[Jerry]

It had been explained to you then that a different mass would not have had an effect only on the descent profile in the atmosphere, but on the trajectory of the probes outside the atmosphere.

Absolutely

In fact, it is only possible to isolate non-Newtonian kinetic behavior in environments where atmospheric drag is minimal or completely accounted for. Cassini’s navigation and Science teams have isolated the performance of Cassini near Titan, and demonstrated the behavior of the probe relative to atmospheric modeling is quite peculiar (the comparative graph is in my avatar). They expected the probe to experience much less ‘drag’ near the poles where limb studies have indicated the atmosphere should be thinner. The polar passes perturbed Cassini too much relative to the models; and I don’t think it is collisions with unexpected molecules that is causing this unexpected torque.

According, to Newton and Einstein, the kinetic energy in a body is a function of the mass of the body-in-motion and the velocity of the object relative to the speed of light. I am arguing that the total energy is a function of the mass and velocity [i]relative to the center and distribution of mass[i] of in the system. This means an object in orbit about Venus or Mercury, will have more effective mass at a given velocity than the same object would have at the earth’s distance from the sun.

Therefore, when an orbiting body passes over a geological feature, such as a volcanic mountain; the mountain will appear to be less dense than a mountain with the same composition would appear on earth. It is a fact that most of the volcanic features of Venus appear to be under-dense. Likewise, if our probes at Venus have more effective mass, the chasma of Venus should produce smaller-than-expected upward blips of our probes. This happens, and the effect is attributed to denser-than-average surface materials in the Venus chasma.

It may be reasonable to conclude volcanic mountains on Venus are lighter than similar structures on the Earth, and that depressions are heavier, but it is a stretch to create geological scenarios that present exactly the opposite conditions on Mars; and yet that is what our orbiting probes have demonstrated to us: Mars mountains appear over-dense, and Mars valleys appear under-dense.

If the kinetic energy of an orbiting probe is a function of the mass distribution of the system, the effective mass of a probe orbiting Mars is less than the same mass moving at the same velocity would have in an orbit about the earth. Therefore, mountains on Mars should perturb the ‘less massive’ probe more; and Martian valleys allow the probe to “zag” higher than expected. This is interpreted as more dense mountains, and less dense valleys, exactly opposite the crust relationship on Venus.

Our observations of Galileo at Jupiter are also consistent with this alternative definition of the mass momentum relationship. But if this is correct, why are our rockets able to reach targets with such absolute precision? For one thing, they are not quite that precise; careful adjustments have to be made, and navigators have become very adapt at fine tuning orbital solutions. The other reason, is that rockets are mass ejecting systems; so if the probe has more or less effective mass, so does the rocket fuel mass when it is ejected to provide propulsion.

In this scenario, Newtonian mechanics overestimate the true mass of Venus. In the process of moving a space probe from the orbit of the Earth to the orbit of Venus, less kinetic energy should have to be removed from the probe in order to settle it into an orbit. It proved surprisingly easy to use aerobraking to park Venus probes in orbit. Just the opposite has proven true at Mars, where more-energy-than-expected has had to be dissipated to circularize a Martian orbit. (I don’t have data to back up these last two assertions – only the unquantified fact Venus orbit insertions have progressed smoothly, and Martian insertions have taken much longer. It would be interesting to know if the Mars insertions required more braking energy than expected, based upon calometric heating experienced).

Is there really enough difference between what-is-expected and what-is-observed in Newtonian calculations that are not effected by atmospheres? Are the solutions so bad that they grossly under-predict the masses of objects in the outer solar systems and still allow us to use Newtonian mechanics to reach and orbit outer planets?