Space probe on way to Saturn moon
By Dave Santucci
CNN
Friday, December 24, 2004 Posted: 11:43 PM EST (0443 GMT)
(CNN) -- A small space probe launched from NASA's Cassini
spacecraft late Friday is making a beeline for the surface of
Saturn's hazy moon Titan, taking an historic trip to unlock the
stubborn mysteries of a perplexing place -- discoveries that might
even shed light on Earth's own origins.
The Huygens lander, built by the European Space Agency, separated
from Cassini shortly after 10 p.m. ET, under the watchful eyes of
U.S. and European control rooms in California and Germany, without
any problems reported.
On January 14, if all goes as planned, the $600 million probe --
about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle -- will descend through
Titan's thick atmosphere and parachute toward the surface, taking
pictures and scientific measurements all the way to touchdown --
or, possibly, splashdown, because scientists aren't entirely sure
what to expect under the moon's heavy clouds.
Based on pictures taken by Cassini about 745 miles (1200
kilometers) away from Titan, the landing site appears to be "for
lack of a better word, shoreline," although the probe will likely
touch down on a solid, rather than a liquid, surface, said Kevin
Grazier, science planning engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.
Once it arrives, Huygens will have a very brief window in which to
take pictures and make measurements on Titan.
The spacecraft has no more than three hours of battery life, a
majority of which will be taken up by the descent.
Engineers only expect to get 30 minutes of data from the
surface.
Describing the conditions the probe is likely to encounter, Candy
Hansen, NASA's Titan expert, said "it's going to be very
cold."
"I'd wear my very warmest boots. I expect it would come across as a
very cold, blustery place, but yet with this sort of eerie beauty
of Saturn in the sky," she said.
Scientists believe Titan's chemistry could be very similar to that
of early Earth before life formed.
One of the goals of the Huygens mission is to find out whether that
assumption is correct.
After a seven-year voyage from Earth, Cassini has been in Saturn's
orbit since July 1, sending back groundbreaking images of the
planet's rings and the closest-ever pictures of its 33 moons,
including Titan.
Scientists at the European Space Agency are hoping that the Huygens
mission proves more successful than its Mars Beagle, which plowed
into the red planet's surface a year ago and was never heard from
again.