On Jan. 14, 2005, after a seven-year journey through the Solar System on board the Cassini spacecraft, the European Space Agency's Huygens probe successfully descended through the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.
The European Space Agency's Huygens probe appears shining as it coasts away from Cassini in this image taken on Dec. 26, 2004, just two days after the probe successfully detached from the Cassini spacecraft. Huygens landed on Titan on Jan. 14, 2005.
ESA's Huygens Probe appears shining as it coasts away from Cassini in this close-up of an image taken on 26 December 2004, after it successfully detached from the Cassini spacecraft.
This image is an artist's impression of the descent and landing sequence followed by ESA's Huygens probe that landed on Titan. The Jan. 14, 2005 landing was the culmination of a 22-year process of planning, organizing and cooperation between ESA and NASA.
This is one of the first raw images returned by the ESA Huygens probe during its successful descent onto Titan on Jan. 14, 2005. It was taken from an altitude of 16.2 kilometers with a resolution of approximately 40 meters per pixel. It apparently shows short, stubby drainage channels leading to a 'shoreline' or boundary of some sort.
This is one of the first raw images returned by the ESA Huygens probe during its successful descent onto Titan on Jan. 14, 2005. It was taken at an altitude of 8 kilometers with a resolution of 20 meters per pixel. It shows what could be the landing site, with shorelines and boundaries between raised ground and flooded plains.
Images from the ESA Huygens probe's DISR instrument taken between 17 and 8 km were assembled to produce this panoramic mosaic. The probe groundtrack is indicated as points; north is up. Channels cut through the brighter terrain, implying precipitation (likely as methane ‘rain’) and possibly springs.
This distorted fish-eye projection shows a view of Titan’s surface from 5 kilometres above the surface. It is built with images taken during descent by the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on board ESA’s Huygens mission, on Jan. 14, 2005.
This image is a Mercator projection of an Huygens’s view of Titan, taken at 10 kilometres altitude (a Mercator projection is kind of map which keeps the cardinal directions intact – they cross at right angles – but distort surface areas). The image was taken during descent by the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on board the probe, on Jan. 14, 2005.
This image was returned on Jan. 14, 2005, by ESA's Huygens probe during its successful descent to land on Titan. This is the color view, following processing to add reflection spectra data, gives a better indication of the actual color of the surface. Initially thought to be rocks or ice blocks, they are more pebble-sized.
This composite view of Titan’s surface is built with images taken on 14 January 2005 by the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on board ESA’s Huygens mission, after touch-down. The composite is compared with a similarly scaled picture taken on the Moon’s surface. Objects near the centre of the picture are roughly the size of a man’s foot, while objects at the horizon are a fraction of a man’s height.
A view of Huygens probable landing site on Titan (white circle) based on initial, best-guess estimates. ESA's Huygens probe landed on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, on Jan. 14, 2005.
A view of Titan from the VIMS instrument on the Cassini orbiter. The Huygens probe landed in the small red circle on the boundary of the bright and dark regions on Jan. 14, 2005. The size of the circle shows the field of view of the Huygens DISR imager from an altitude of 20 kilometers.
This image of Titan’s surface was taken on Jan. 14, 2005 by the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on board ESA’s Huygens mission, after touch-down. When printed on letter sized paper, the image shows the size of Titan’s pebbles in their true size.
This composite was produced from images returned on Jan. 14, 2005, by ESA's Huygens probe during its successful landing on Titan. It shows a full 360-degree view around Huygens. The left-hand side, behind Huygens, shows a boundary between light and dark areas. The white streaks seen near this boundary could be ground 'fog' of methane or ethane vapour.
This raw image was returned by the ESA Huygens DISR camera after the probe descended through the atmosphere of Titan on Jan. 14, 2005. It shows the surface of Titan with what could be blocks of ice strewn around. The size and distance of the blocks will be determined when the image is properly processed.
These stereographic (fish-eye) images of Titan’s surface were taken during descent by the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on board ESA’s Huygens probe, on Jan. 14, 2005. This view shows the surface from 6 different altitudes and the haze layer at 20-21 kilometers altitude.
This composite was produced from images returned on 14 January 2005, by ESA's Huygens probe during its successful descent to land on Titan. It shows the boundary between the lighter-colored uplifted terrain, marked with what appear to be drainage channels, and darker lower areas. These images were taken from an altitude of about 8 kilometers with a resolution of about 20 meters per pixel.
This picture is a composite of 30 images from ESA's Huygens probe on Jan 14, 2005. They were taken from an altitude varying from 13 kilometers down to 8 kilometers when the probe was descending towards its landing site.
