January 2005 (supplemental)Huygens probe success! |
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The following story is far too newsworthy to wait until February's Digital Skyline:
January 14, 2005 Titan, Moon of Saturn -- This past Friday, during our early morning hours, the Huygens probe was 751 million miles away, gently touching down on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. This is a remarkable achievement -- for the first time ever, we landed on another planet's moon. For the first time ever, we have seen the surface of Titan, whose Nitrogen/Methane clouds have shielded the surface from our view. We have pictures from a truly alien world... our first images from the surface this giant, mysterious moon:
The probe sent back data for 3 hours and 44 minutes -- providing us with at least 350 images of the descent and the ground, atmospheric samples from throughout the atmosphere, as well as the sounds of the wind as the probe descended. As the probe fell through the atmosphere, it took pictures the entire time. The imaging team hastily put together this collage of images of the descent, to satisfy the impatient observers, like myself:
We see highlands and lowlands, drainage channels and erosion, and what appear to be bodies of liquid. It's certainly not water, since the surface temperature is around 180 degrees below zero. It could be lakes of ethane or methane... we're not sure. These images have ignited our imaginations as to what it can be -- it will take some time to combine the images with other scientific information to pin down what they are showing us. It will take some time to sift through the information and glean some solid scientific data from the transmissions. We will be studying this clump of information for months or years to piece together the puzzle that is Titan. All future study of Titan will refer to the data received from the Huygens probe -- just like Cassini's data is being compared with information obtained by Voyager data in 1980 and 1981. (Cassini is the spacecraft which is currently studying Saturn, and which was the ferry that brought Huygens to Titan.) Friday, January 14 was a day of celebrations and congratulations to the teams of scientists from France, Italy, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and the US -- all of whom contributed to the ultimate success of this mission. The scientists have decided to spend a full week of analyzing and compiling information before broadcast many conclusions. This Friday, January 21, at 11:00 am Central European Time (that's 5:00 am on the east coast of the US), the Huygens team will be presenting the information they have collected and have begun to understand. All of this and TONS more information can be found at the European Space Agency's Cassini-Huygens web site.
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