Titan, Moon of Saturn

I've been following the Cassini-Huygens Mission closely, and the latest pictures and info blew me away. I can't wait to see what the probes find. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, here's a quick primer I've assembled from a few pages.

Firstly, some background info on the mission from NASA:

"Launched from Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 15, 1997, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft will reach the Saturnian region in July 2004. The mission is composed of two elements: The Cassini orbiter that will orbit Saturn and its moons for four years, and the Huygens probe that will dive into the murky atmosphere of Titan and land on its surface. The sophisticated instruments onboard these spacecraft will provide scientists with vital data to help understand this mysterious, vast region.

Cassini-Huygens is an international collaboration between three space agencies. Seventeen nations contributed to building the spacecraft. The Cassini orbiter was built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Huygens probe was built by the European Space Agency. The Italian Space agency provided Cassini's high-gain communication antenna. More than 250 scientists worldwide will study the data collected."

Cassini (apparently the tin foil is just to make it look cool.. maybe..)


Now some info on Titan from SpaceRef Europe:

"Titan is a highly complex world and is closer to a terrestrial planet than a moon typical of the outer planetary systems. Titan was first seen by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens (after which the ESA probe is named) in 1655.

Not only is Titan the largest of Saturn's satellites, it is also larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto, and is the second largest satellite in the solar system (Jupiter's Ganymede being larger). It is the only satellite in the solar system with appreciable atmosphere, composed mostly of Nitrogen, but also contains aerosols and hydrocarbons, including methane and ethane. Titan's atmosphere was first confirmed in 1944 when Gerard Kuiper confirmed the presence of gaseous methane with spectroscopy.

Titan's peak surface temperature is about 95 K (-178 degrees C) and surface pressure is 1.6 Earth atmospheres. At this temperature and pressure, many simple chemicals that are present in abundance (methane, ethane, water, ammonia) provide materials in solid, liquid and gaseous form which may interact to create exotic features on the surface. Precipitation, flowing liquids, lakes and eruptions are all possible.

Titan orbits Saturn at a distance of just over 20 Saturn radii (1,222,000 km/759,000 miles) which is far enough to carry the moon in and out of Saturn's magnetosphere. Very little is known about Titan's interior structure, including whether it has its own magnetic field.

Titan's surface has been difficult to study, as it is veiled by a dense hydrocarbon haze that forms in the dense stratosphere as methane is destroyed by sunlight. From the data collected so far, dark features can be seen crossing the equatorial region of Titan, with a large bright region near longitude 90 degrees now named Xanadu, and possibly a large crater in the northern hemisphere."

And round it out with a picture (in false color, I think they added thermal imaging to it from the look of the red on the sun side).



Lastly, here's what we've got to look forward to:

In December 2004, Cassini will eject the Huygens probe. After its 22-day coast, the cone-shaped probe will descend into Titan's cloudy atmosphere. Three sets of parachutes will deploy to slow the probe and to provide a stable platform for scientific measurements. Instruments on board will collect information about the atmosphere's chemical composition and the clouds surrounding Titan. The data will be radioed to the Cassini orbiter, which will then relay the data to Earth.

About two hours after entering Titan's atmosphere, the probe will land near the moon's equator. If Huygens survives the impact, the probe might be able to communicate with the spacecraft for a few minutes after landing on the frozen surface of Titan. Huygens will be the furthest human-made object ever to land on a celestial body."

As much as the US pisses me off daily, I love their space program.