Wind Speeds on Titan

The Cosmic Mirror is reporting that the Doppler Wind Experiment team for Huygens has already begun to analyze the doppler data retrieved by ground-based radio telescopes like Green Bank to make up for the loss of Channel A. From a talk Mike Bird gave at the University of Bonn on Monday, the winds at 50 km in altitude, or 10 km above the tropopause, were blowing out of the west 40-50 meters/second. Winds decreased with altitude until it was only a few meters per second at the surface. This is consistent with the DISR view of the winds. Marty Tomasko reported in a press conference the day after landing that the winds between 10 and 20 kilometers altitude were out of the west at 7 m/s.

Doppler data also showed the ride higher up in Titan's atmosphere was quite bumpy (more on this in a post later today).