Saturn probe
sends isles data

Mauna Kea scientists get
atmospheric info on the moon Titan

HILO >> Scientists at Japan's Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea say they were able to get good data from the atmosphere of Titan after the Huygens probe reached the Saturn moon yesterday.

The scientists used special instruments from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that recorded weather information from Titan as the European Space Agency probe entered the atmosphere just after midnight.

Although there were no "pretty pictures" of the probe entering the atmosphere, astronomer Saeko Hayashi said getting the data meant success. The data will be compared with information radioed by Huygens.

After a seven-year journey, the probe landed successfully and was soon transmitting images of the giant moon's mysterious surface. A landscape emerged of canyons carved by liquid, a possible shoreline and ice blocks, parts of a world that scientists believe resembles the early Earth.

Titan has long been inscrutable to scientists because of its soupy orange atmosphere. Researchers hope the images and data the Huygens probe transmits might help answer basic questions about how life formed on Earth.

On Mauna Kea, scientists were hoping to see evidence of the probe entering the atmosphere. But despite the huge mirrors of Mauna Kea's four biggest telescopes -- 26.6 feet at Gemini, 27.2 feet at Subaru and 32.8 feet at the two Kecks -- Gemini astronomer Jean-Rene Roy said it was a "very, very, very big bet" that they would be successful.

The best that Gemini can see on Titan is something at least 100 miles long, he said. The telescope could never hope to see the 8.9-foot-diameter Huygens, but it might have glimpsed light from a 6-mile-long trail of material Huygens could have stirred up entering the atmosphere, he said.

The time to spot it was brief, about 30 seconds, he said.

But ice froze the Gemini dome shut, and the telescope saw nothing, Roy said.

At Keck II, observers got images of Titan at the moment of the Huygens entry but no sign of Huygens itself.

"It was worth getting up in the middle of the night for this historic moment," said Keck director Fred Chaffee.

Winds up to 50 miles an hour finally forced closure by 1 a.m. of Keck II and Keck I, being used for a separate project, said spokeswoman Laura Kraft.

But Subaru, with "heavy duty" construction and in an area of lighter winds, stayed open all night and was successful, Hayashi said.

NASA personnel using Subaru planned a second night of gathering weather data from Titan last night, she said.