The world has got its first look at the surface of the Saturnian moon Titan with European space probe Huygens beginning to send breathtaking pictures
Published:
15 January 2005 y., Saturday
The world has got its first look at the surface of the Saturnian moon Titan with European space probe Huygens beginning to send breathtaking pictures.
The first picture taken from a height of about 16km, as Huygens descended before landing on the Titan surface on Friday, showed a possibly rocky surface with “drainage channels” for liquids.
Scientists speculated the channels might feed into canyons on the surface.
“I think none of us would have expected…this kind of unveiling, but it is pretty consistent with the surprises we have seen before,” said Al Diaz, NASA’s associate administrator for science.
The $3 billion Cassini-Huygens mission, a joint project of NASA and the European and Italian space agencies, was launched in 1997 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to study Saturn, its rings, moons and magnetosphere.
In December, the Saturn explorer Cassini dropped off Huygens for a three-week journey toward Titan, culminating in the probe’s parachute-slowed plunge to the moon’s surface.
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