It’s an exciting day in space, as the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe has touched down on the surface of Titan, a moon orbiting the ringed planet Saturn.
Huygens (pronounced hoy-ghenz, if you’re not familiar with the 17th Century Dutch astronomer for whom the probe was named) was released from its mother ship, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, on Christmas Day and spent the next 20 days settling into the proper approach course. After descending and decelerating through Titan’s atmosphere for over two hours, it appears to have safely landed on a solid surface and is now transmitting data to Cassini, which is orbiting Saturn and will relay the information back to us here on Earth.
So why should any of this be considered important or interesting in our lackadaisical, apathetic, money-tight, post-everything era? Well, first of all, there is a historical precedent here: Huygens is the first man-made object to land on an object in the outer solar system (“outer” being defined as beyond the orbit of Mars), which is a pretty big accomplishment whatever your opinion of space exploration.
Secondly, Titan is pretty large as moons go and it has an atmosphere, which makes it inherently interesting. It’s the only moon in our system that has one, if I remember my trivia correctly. This atmosphere is dense enough to support the formation of clouds, although they’re not made of water (Titan’s atmosphere is composed of nitrogen and methane, and it’s way too cold for liquid or vaporous water to exist). Scientists believe Titan’s chemistry is similar to what Earth’s was like in the early days of our world’s formation, so, if all goes well, this mission will improve our understanding of our own home — always a good thing, in my book.
Finally, I just think it’s damn cool to explore new places. In that spirit, I’m especially excited to receive the results from one particular intstrument aboard Huygens: a microphone. If it works properly, Huygens will be sending back to Earth for the first time the sounds of an alien world. Even if all we hear is the moan of a lonely, frigid wind, it will be something no human has ever experienced before…
Vital links related to this story:
The ESA’s official web site, which is, not surprisingly, packed with coverage of the Huygens mission at the moment.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Cassini-Huygens home page, which provides an overall view of both halves of this mission
Space.com, the best online source I’ve found for general news about space exploration and astronomy
