About 12 years ago , one of the most amazing space missions we ’ve ever undertake took topographic point . January 14 , 2005 , was the day we landed a probe – called Huygens – on Saturn ’s moon Titan .
NASA of late paid homage to the unbelievable joint mission with ESA , releasing a television that show trope from the lander as it descended to the surface . The footage is not unexampled , but was re - released to highlight the day of remembrance of the effort .
Huygens class from its parent spacecraft , Cassini , on December 24 , 2004 . It then began a 20 - solar day slide towards Titan , before entering the aura . A rut cuticle kept it good as it passed through , and a chute gently depress it to the priming . Aside from returning sensational range , Huygensalso sampledTitan ’s air and measured the wind fastness .
Prior to the declivity , scientists were diffident what Huygens would regain . The atmospheric state of Titan is so thick that we had never hear below the clouds , conduce some to theorize that the lunar month might be cover in a global sea of fluid hydrocarbons .
What Huygens actually found as it broke through the clouds was a jolting control surface , streaked with dark melodic phrase that evoke rivers of methane were flux on the ground . It ultimately touch down in what is thought to be a dry lakebed , with its net images prove rounded pebbles .
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" The Huygens images were everything our images from field were not , " Carolyn Porco , the Cassini imaging squad run at the Space Science Institute in Boulder , Colorado , said in astatement . " Instead of hazy , sinuous features that we could only guess were streams and drainage channels , here was incontrovertible evidence that at some decimal point in Titan ’s story – and perhaps even now – there were flow fluid hydrocarbons on the control surface . "
Further studies by the Cassini spacecraft , which has been in field around Saturn since July 2004 ( but will come up to an endthis September ) , have revealedlakes of liquid hydrocarbonson the surface . This makes Titan the only place in our Solar System other than Earth with body of liquidity on its open .
Titan is the lone world we have landed a spacecraft on in the outer Solar System , although we have soft - landed on six other body elsewhere – Venus , the Moon , Mars , two asteroid , and a comet . But it is perhaps one of the greatest accomplishment in the history of space geographic expedition . Given that Titan may have condition suited for life , many hope it will not be long before we return .
