A couple of days ago a saucer like object touched down on the surface of Titan, the largest moon in orbit around Saturn. Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system. Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons is the largest. Titan is so large that it is bigger than the planets Mercury and Pluto. There is now a debate as to whether Pluto is a planet or not. Titan is known to have an atmosphere that is denser even than the Earth's. On the moon's surface the pressure from this atmosphere is 60% greater than on the planet Earth. It is believed that this atmosphere is primarily made up of nitrogen and hydrocarbon elements. The surface temperature of Titan is believed to be -279 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Quicktime animation of the descent of Huygens to the surface of Titan. Size 21.7 Megs.

The mission was launched on October 15, 1997. It is a collaboration between three space agencies, NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, but seventeen nations contributed to building the space craft. NASA built and maintained the Cassini orbiter, the Huygens probe was built by the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency built the high-gain communication antenna for Cassini. The whole thing was quite an accomplishment when you consider it had to fly in space for about seven years and continue to function all this time. Then there was the successful landing that was required by the Huygens probe. Quite an accomplishment indeed.

Left: Photo that was taken by Huygens after it landed.
Right: The same photo but in true color.

Cassini itself was unique. It was the first spacecraft sent by man to explore Saturn's rings and moons. Three other spacecraft have explored Saturn however, they were Pioneer 11 during a flyby in 1979, Voyager I flew by in 1980 and Voyager 2 flew by in 1981. Cassini went into orbit on June 30, 2004. The data being sent back by Cassini and Huygens is being studied by over 250 scientists worldwide every day. As of this moment Saturn has 33 known moons, it is a virtual solar system of its own. Since Titan had an atmosphere it made it very intriguing to scientists who think that this atmosphere may be similar to the one Earth had before it developed life.

The first composite image taken of Titan's surface by Huygens

The Huygens probe began sending back photos of Titan on 14 January 2005. It had separated from the Cassini space craft on 26 December, 2004. Cassini had been programmed to point its antenna toward Earth and beam back photos from Huygens. It took 2.5 hours from when the probe first entered Titan's atmosphere until touch down.

Quicktime Animation and sound of Cassini passing through the ring system of Saturn Size 2.2 megs

What will we find on Titan? Time will tell but it should be very interesting.