[BRIEF NOTE] Going Down
Dec. 25th, 2004 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFrom The Guardian:
Landing on my birthday, no less. The Huygens data will be very interesting to see indeed, although preliminary conclusions seem to be that there are no world-girding seas. Lakes, though, don't seem to be precluded by the data.
Space engineers sent Europe's Huygens probe sweeping towards Saturn's largest moon, Titan, yesterday. Officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said they had received a signal confirming that the barbe cue-sized robot craft had separated from its mother ship, the American-built spaceship Cassini.
Huygens, which is bristling with British-built instruments and detectors, will take 20 days to reach Titan, the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere. Scientists believe conditions on Titan are similar to those on Earth before life evolved, billions of years ago.
On 14 January, Huygens will enter Titan's thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane and descend by parachute towards the moon's surface, relaying its data to Cassini above.
Landing on my birthday, no less. The Huygens data will be very interesting to see indeed, although preliminary conclusions seem to be that there are no world-girding seas. Lakes, though, don't seem to be precluded by the data.
