One of the most exciting parts of Cassini spacecraft's 12-and-a-half years travel while orbiting Saturn was in December 2004, when the research centre put down the European Space Agency's Huygens probe.
Huygens is a project of the European Space Agency (ESA), which travelled to Titan as the mothership companion to NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, and then got separated on Dec. 24, 2004, for a 20-day coast toward its destiny at Saturn’s moon Titan.
One of the most exciting parts of Cassini spacecraft’s 12-and-a-half years travel while orbiting Saturn was in December 2004, when the research centre put down the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe. Since then, twenty days later, in January 2005, Huygens probably became the first spacecraft to land on a space object in the outer solar system. Till today, Huygens probe’s touchdown on Saturn’s moon Titan remains the most remarkable landing achieved by NASA.
Saturn’s moon Titan is a suspected alien world. Under the dense clouds that surround the moon, flowing rivers and lakes of hydrocarbons, probably liquid methane and ethane have made Saturn’s moon Titan, the only object in space other than Earth that is known to have stable bodies of surface liquid. Temperatures remain hundreds of degrees below zero on Titan. Still scientists are wondering if life exists in the methane seas of the alien moon. This can be a new discovery of alien life, somewhere outside Earth.
A new video from NASA JPL using photos and data was taken by the Huygens probe. The video was taken while landing, from atmospheric entry to touchdown on a barren alien floodplain. Though Huygens had only few minutes to transmit data to Cassini’s spacecraft, leaving Huygens Probe cut off from humanity, the little probe still managed to reveal the rugged highlands and intricate narrow valleys and drainage channels that crisscross the mysterious world of Titan.
“The Huygens images were everything our images from orbit were not. Instead of hazy, sinuous features that we could only guess were streams and drainage channels, here was incontrovertible evidence that at some point in Titan’s history and perhaps even now there were flowing liquid hydrocarbons on the surface. Huygens’ images became a Rosetta stone for helping us interpret our subsequent findings on Titan.” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead, in a JPL press release.
Hence, it can be well expected that Huygen’s probe is about to reveal something different which no one in this human world have ever found out.
Huygens is a project of the European Space Agency (ESA), which travelled to Titan as the mothership companion to NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, and then got separated on Dec. 24, 2004, for a 20-day coast toward its destiny at Saturn’s moon Titan.
One of the most exciting parts of Cassini spacecraft’s 12-and-a-half years travel while orbiting Saturn was in December 2004, when the research centre put down the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe. Since then, twenty days later, in January 2005, Huygens probably became the first spacecraft to land on a space object in the outer solar system. Till today, Huygens probe’s touchdown on Saturn’s moon Titan remains the most remarkable landing achieved by NASA.
Saturn’s moon Titan is a suspected alien world. Under the dense clouds that surround the moon, flowing rivers and lakes of hydrocarbons, probably liquid methane and ethane have made Saturn’s moon Titan, the only object in space other than Earth that is known to have stable bodies of surface liquid. Temperatures remain hundreds of degrees below zero on Titan. Still scientists are wondering if life exists in the methane seas of the alien moon. This can be a new discovery of alien life, somewhere outside Earth.
A new video from NASA JPL using photos and data was taken by the Huygens probe. The video was taken while landing, from atmospheric entry to touchdown on a barren alien floodplain. Though Huygens had only few minutes to transmit data to Cassini’s spacecraft, leaving Huygens Probe cut off from humanity, the little probe still managed to reveal the rugged highlands and intricate narrow valleys and drainage channels that crisscross the mysterious world of Titan.
“The Huygens images were everything our images from orbit were not. Instead of hazy, sinuous features that we could only guess were streams and drainage channels, here was incontrovertible evidence that at some point in Titan’s history and perhaps even now there were flowing liquid hydrocarbons on the surface. Huygens’ images became a Rosetta stone for helping us interpret our subsequent findings on Titan.” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead, in a JPL press release.
Hence, it can be well expected that Huygen’s probe is about to reveal something different which no one in this human world have ever found out.