January 13, 2005

Oneway ticket to Titan

Tomorrow, a space mission that began 7 years ago will reach a critical landmark. Launched from the Cassini spacecraft on Christmas, the Huygens probe will finally complete it's voyage through the foggy nitrogen- and methane-rich atmosphere of Titan, and land on Titan's mysterious surface. Titan is Saturn's largest moon, somewhat less than half the size of Earth, or about the size of Mercury. It is the only moon in our solar system with an atmosphere. Because the atmosphere is cloudy with methane and larger organic compounds, scientists have very little knowledge of Titan's surface.
David Grinspoon, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO, puts it this way, "[Titan] is unlike any place we've ever explored... this could be one of the most revelatory moments in nearly five decades of planetary exploration." Link.

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