I Get Off HereHuygens has landed! This is the kind of thing that sends shivers up my spine. From the
WaPo,
The European Space Agency's Huygens space probe smacked into the smoggy atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan Friday, turned on its instruments and parachuted safely 789 miles to the ground in a near-perfect ending to one of the most dramatic missions in the history of space travel.
[...]
Titan holds a particular fascination for scientists. Not only is it the only moon in the solar system known to have a significant atmosphere, but it is also regarded as "pre-biotic," having several characteristics probably possessed by the Earth before life evolved.
These include an atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen and the presence of water ice and hydrocarbons, the building blocks of life. As a solar system laboratory, however, Titan is condemned by its 900-milion-mile distance from the sun to be frozen in time.
Up to Friday, Titan had frustrated all efforts to get a clear peek at its surface. Methane in the atmosphere reacts in the sunshine to wrap the moon in a permanent blanket of smog -- green at higher altitudes, probably orange on the ground. Huygens was designed to breach this shroud of secrecy.
[...]
"I spent today watching my life pass before my eyes," said a visibly emotional Alphonso V. Diaz, NASA's associate administrator for science. "It's just incredible. There will only be one first successful landing on Titan, and this was it."
my emphasis - ub
posted by ubaid - Friday, January 14, 2005 at 3:54 PM -
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