The first image from the Huygens probe on Titan shows the surface of the moon of Saturn:
Some remarkable factoids about the mission:
- Although it is a moon, Titan is larger than Pluto, and has lakes of liquid methane (we seem to be seeing one in the picture).
- It took seven years for the probe to travel from Earth to Titan.
- Because not enough sun is available to power cells, the probe is powered by batteries, which were only designed to last a few minutes.
- The batteries lasted a few hours anyway!
Comments
And the most amazing thing about Huygens is that it is an ESA (European Space Agency) probe and not a NASA probe. I would have bet hard money that the Europeans couldn't hit the ocean from the beach with that thing.
The mighty EU white flag is flying over Titan. Unconditional surrender again.
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