Watch as Huygens descends through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan and lands on its surface on January 14, 2005.
Huygens landed on Saturn’s moon Titan 20 years ago
Right now, space probes are speeding toward the moons in the outer solar system, ready to explore these icy ocean worlds. JUICE is headed toward Jupiter’s icy moons, while Europa Clipper is zeroing in on one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, where there’s already scientific evidence for the ingredients of life. But did you know we’ve already landed on a moon of a gas giant? On January 14, 2005, ESA’s Huygens spacecraft descended through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, to what astronomers thought might be a wet world, but in reality it looked a bit like … Mars?
Huygens made the trip to Saturn aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. After Huygens patiently waited its turn aboard Cassini for seven years, Cassini released Huygens on its trip toward Titan on December 25, 2004. On January 14, Huygens entered the moon’s atmosphere and took two hours to reach the surface. And on the surface it continued to record and send information for about 90 minutes.
The descent and landing
Here’s NASA’s description of the event:
Huygens entered Titan’s atmosphere at 09:05:56 UTC on January 14, 2005, and within four minutes had deployed its 28-foot (8.5-meter) diameter main parachute.
A minute later, Huygens began transmitting a wealth of information back to Cassini for more than two hours before impacting on the surface of Titan at 11:38:11 UTC at a velocity of 15 feet per second (4.54 meters per second). Landing coordinates were 192.32 degrees west longitude and 10.25 degrees south latitude, about 4 miles (7 kilometers) from its target point.
A problem in the communications program limited the number of images that Huygens transmitted to Cassini, from about 700 to 376. Yet, to the excitement of planetary scientists back on Earth, it continued its transmissions for another three hours and 10 minutes. During this time it transmitted a view of its surroundings (224 images of the same view).
Huygens appears to have landed on a surface resembling sand made of ice grains. Surface pictures showed a flat plain littered with pebbles as well as evidence of liquid acting on the terrain in the recent past. Subsequent data confirmed the existence of liquid hydrocarbon lakes in the polar regions of Titan.
Huygens images of Titan’s surface
Check out these views from Huygens as the spacecraft descended through Titan’s hazy atmosphere and then made out the varied terrain below.
And here was the view from Titan’s surface.
Next up, Europa Clipper and JUICE
How different – or similar – will our views of Jupiter’s moons be? Europa Clipper will arrive at Europa in 2030 and JUICE will reach the Jovian moons in 2031. The Europa Clipper mission will only perform flybys of Europa, no landing. But, interestingly, both Europa Clipper and JUICE will end their missions by deliberately crashing into Ganymede. ESA said:
… there is the possibility that – depending on the missions’ end dates – one spacecraft might have the chance to observe the effects of the other’s impact.
Bottom line: On January 14, 2005, the Huygens spacecraft descended through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan and landed on its surface. See the 20th anniversary images of Titan here.
The post Huygens landed on Saturn’s moon Titan 20 years ago first appeared on EarthSky.
from EarthSky https://ift.tt/kTjSvV6
Watch as Huygens descends through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan and lands on its surface on January 14, 2005.
Huygens landed on Saturn’s moon Titan 20 years ago
Right now, space probes are speeding toward the moons in the outer solar system, ready to explore these icy ocean worlds. JUICE is headed toward Jupiter’s icy moons, while Europa Clipper is zeroing in on one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, where there’s already scientific evidence for the ingredients of life. But did you know we’ve already landed on a moon of a gas giant? On January 14, 2005, ESA’s Huygens spacecraft descended through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, to what astronomers thought might be a wet world, but in reality it looked a bit like … Mars?
Huygens made the trip to Saturn aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. After Huygens patiently waited its turn aboard Cassini for seven years, Cassini released Huygens on its trip toward Titan on December 25, 2004. On January 14, Huygens entered the moon’s atmosphere and took two hours to reach the surface. And on the surface it continued to record and send information for about 90 minutes.
The descent and landing
Here’s NASA’s description of the event:
Huygens entered Titan’s atmosphere at 09:05:56 UTC on January 14, 2005, and within four minutes had deployed its 28-foot (8.5-meter) diameter main parachute.
A minute later, Huygens began transmitting a wealth of information back to Cassini for more than two hours before impacting on the surface of Titan at 11:38:11 UTC at a velocity of 15 feet per second (4.54 meters per second). Landing coordinates were 192.32 degrees west longitude and 10.25 degrees south latitude, about 4 miles (7 kilometers) from its target point.
A problem in the communications program limited the number of images that Huygens transmitted to Cassini, from about 700 to 376. Yet, to the excitement of planetary scientists back on Earth, it continued its transmissions for another three hours and 10 minutes. During this time it transmitted a view of its surroundings (224 images of the same view).
Huygens appears to have landed on a surface resembling sand made of ice grains. Surface pictures showed a flat plain littered with pebbles as well as evidence of liquid acting on the terrain in the recent past. Subsequent data confirmed the existence of liquid hydrocarbon lakes in the polar regions of Titan.
Huygens images of Titan’s surface
Check out these views from Huygens as the spacecraft descended through Titan’s hazy atmosphere and then made out the varied terrain below.
And here was the view from Titan’s surface.
Next up, Europa Clipper and JUICE
How different – or similar – will our views of Jupiter’s moons be? Europa Clipper will arrive at Europa in 2030 and JUICE will reach the Jovian moons in 2031. The Europa Clipper mission will only perform flybys of Europa, no landing. But, interestingly, both Europa Clipper and JUICE will end their missions by deliberately crashing into Ganymede. ESA said:
… there is the possibility that – depending on the missions’ end dates – one spacecraft might have the chance to observe the effects of the other’s impact.
Bottom line: On January 14, 2005, the Huygens spacecraft descended through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan and landed on its surface. See the 20th anniversary images of Titan here.
The post Huygens landed on Saturn’s moon Titan 20 years ago first appeared on EarthSky.
from EarthSky https://ift.tt/kTjSvV6
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire