Touch Down on Titan
03 January 2005
450 years ago, a Dutch astronomer named Christiaan Huygens discovered a large moon orbiting Saturn. It was eventually named Titan, after a giant in old Greek legends.
Titan was indeed a giant – the second largest satellite in the Solar System. But even today it is a world of mystery. Its surface is hidden beneath a blanket of orange haze.
Scientists know that its thick atmosphere is mainly nitrogen, just as on Earth. It also contains methane, the gas we burn in our houses and factories.
But the surface temperature is –180°C, cold enough to make ice as hard as rock. It is probably too cold to support life, although there may be an ocean deep underground.
The only way to reveal Titan’s secrets is to send a spacecraft there. On 14 January, ESA’s Huygens probe will parachute through the atmosphere.
Its six instruments will take the first pictures of the unseen surface and tell us what Titan is really like. Huygens will hit the ground at 5 m per second - like jumping from a chair onto the ground.
Will it crash onto solid ice, splash into a methane sea or sink into a mass of slime? Watch this space!
