Saturn has a visitor.

no way? For real? That looks like a bad 70s airbrush.

satt - I didn't doubt you, I was just surprised at the 'smoothness' of the image.

And the Hyugen's probe was successfully released and will kick into gear on Jan 14th as planned.

All times CET (=GMT/UTC +1 hour)
6.51 Timer triggers power-up of onboard electronics
Triggered by a pre-set timer, Huygens's onboard electronics power up and the transmitter is set into low-power mode, awaiting the start of transmission.
11.13 Huygens reaches 'interface altitude'
The 'interface altitude' is defined as 1270 kilometres above the surface of the moon where entry into Titan's atmosphere takes place.
11.17 Pilot parachute deploys
The parachute deploys when Huygens detects that it has slowed to 400 metres per second, at about 180 kilometres above Titan's surface. The pilot parachute is the probe's smallest, only 2.6 metres in diameter. Its sole purpose is to pull off the probe's rear cover, which protected Huygens from the frictional heat of entry.

2.5 seconds after the pilot parachute is deployed, the rear cover is released and the pilot parachute is pulled away. The main parachute, which is 8.3 metres in diameter, unfurls.
11.18 Huygens begins transmitting to Cassini and front shield released
At about 160 kilometres above the surface, the front shield is released.

42 seconds after the pilot parachute is deployed, inlet ports are opened up for the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer and Aerosol Collector Pyrolyser instruments, and booms are extended to expose the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instruments.

The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer will capture its first panorama, and it will continue capturing images and spectral data throughout the descent. The Surface Science Package will also be switched on, measuring atmospheric properties.
11.32 Main parachute separates and drogue parachute deploys
The drogue parachute is 3 metres in diameter. At this level in the atmosphere, about 125 kilometres in altitude, the large main parachute would slow Huygens down so much that the batteries would not last for the entire descent to the surface. The drogue parachute will allow it to descend at the right pace to gather the maximum amount of data.
11.49 Surface proximity sensor activated
Until this point, all of Huygens's actions have been based on clock timers. At a height of 60 kilometres, it will be able to detect its own altitude using a pair of radar altimeters, which will be able to measure the exact distance to the surface. The probe will constantly monitor its spin rate and altitude and feed this information to the science instruments. All times after this are approximate.
12.57 Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer begins sampling atmosphere
This is the last of Huygens's instruments to be activated fully. The descent is expected to take 137 minutes in total, plus or minus 15 minutes. Throughout its descent, the spacecraft will continue to spin at a rate of between 1 and 20 rotations per minute, allowing the camera and other instruments to see the entire panorama around the descending spacecraft.
13.30 Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer lamp turned on
Close to the surface, Huygens's camera instrument will turn on a light. The light is particularly important for the 'Spectral Radiometer' part of the instrument to determine the composition of Titan's surface accurately.
13.34 Surface touchdown
This time may vary by plus or minus 15 minutes depending on how Titan's atmosphere and winds affect Huygens's parachuting descent. Huygens will hit the surface at a speed of 5-6 metres per second. Huygens could land on a hard surface of rock or ice or possibly land on an ethane sea. In either case, Huygens's Surface Science Package is designed to capture every piece of information about the surface that can be determined in the three remaining minutes that Huygens is designed to survive after landing.
15.44 Cassini stops collecting data
Huygens's landing site drops below Titan's horizon as seen by Cassini and the orbiter stops collecting data. Cassini will listen for Huygens's signal as long as there is the slightest possibility that it can be detected. Once Huygens's landing site disappears below the horizon, there's no more chance of signal, and Huygens's work is finished.
16.14 First data sent to Earth
Cassini first turns its high-gain antenna to point towards Earth and then sends the first packet of data.

Getting data from Cassini to Earth is now routine, but for the Huygens mission, additional safeguards are put in place to make sure that none of Huygens's data are lost. Giant radio antennas around the world will listen for Cassini as the orbiter relays repeated copies of Huygens data.


All times above are "Earth Received" time - i.e. 67 minutes after the actual events have taken place at the spacecraft

Radio astronomers confirm Huygens entry in the atmosphere of Titan

14 January 2005 At 11:25 CET the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) of the National Radio-astronomy Observatory in West Virginia, USA, a part of the global network of radio telescopes involved in tracking the Huygens Titan probe, has detected the probe's 'carrier' (tone) signal.

Probe lands on Saturn moon

Staff and agencies
Friday January 14, 2005

A European space probe today ended a seven-year, 2bn-mile voyage when it landed on one of Saturn's moons.
It is hoped that scientists will now receive information which will help them unlock the secrets of Titan, a mysterious cloud-covered body. The signal received from the Huygens probe was only a "carrier signal" used to beam transmissions to its mother ship, Cassini. Useful data will only be obtained when a stronger transmission is relayed to earth by Cassini.

Professor Colin Pillinger, head of planetary science at the Open University and the man behind the doomed Beagle 2 mission to explore Mars, said: "We are very, very pleased to know how it's gone so far. We still have to know that the instruments are switched on. We're really sitting on the edge of our seats here."

The probe is thought to have reached the surface at about 11.30am GMT, having parachuted through Titan's thick, smoggy atmosphere. A signal from the craft picked up by Earth-based radio telescopes continued hours after the landing was scheduled to have taken place, indicating that Huygens was safely on the surface.

Scientists believe it touched down on land rather than into a lake or sea of liquid hydrocarbons. But they will not know until later today if the probe's instruments are working properly, when confirmation of the landing is relayed to the European Space Agency (ESA) operations control centre in Darmstadt, Germany. The first black and white images from Titan are due to arrive later tonight.

Dr Simon Green, of the Open University, said: "We're sure now that the probe has landed. What we don't know is what it has landed in and what the instruments are going to tell us.

"The fact that the signal continued long before the nominal end of mission at plus three minutes tells us that the probe did survive."

Engineers are counting on the probe to have at least three minutes in which to transmit information and images from Titan's surface before its battery runs out.

Huygens left Nasa's Cassini mother ship for Titan on Christmas Day. Controllers received a signal before the scheduled landing time earlier today showing it had begun its descent to Titan, the only moon in the solar system thought to have a significant atmosphere. It is one and a half times heavier than Earth's, but scientists believe the two atmospheres share some similarities.

"Its atmosphere is thought to be somewhat like that of the Earth when the Earth was first formed," Alan Smith, the ESA's deputy head of operations, told the Associated Press. "So people could extrapolate from the measurements they make back to the atmosphere of the early Earth.

"I expect it to be a very interesting and scientifically challenging moon to visit. The Huygens' mission is the first one to get there, that's why it's so exciting."

Much is riding on the success of the 9ft wide probe, which cost £250m. Failure would be a devastating blow for its scientists, some of whom have devoted half their working lives to the mission.

One hazard would be landing on a solid slope in a position that failed to permit a strong signal back to Cassini, and from there to Earth. Saturn is so far away that it takes 66 minutes for radio waves travelling at the speed of light to cross space from the planet to Earth.

Britain's leading Huygens scientist, Dr John Zarnecki, from the Open University, said: "This is not like the planet Mars, where we can return every couple of years. Titan is very, very far away. This is going to be our only shot at it for an extremely long time."

The Cassini-Huygens mission, a project undertaken by Nasa, ESA and the Italian space agency, has been the most ambitious unmanned space mission of all time.

Launched in October 1997 from Cape Canaveral, Florida to study Saturn, it reached the planet on July 1 last year. Since then, it has rewarded scientists with a wealth of data, including extraordinary images of the planet's rings.

Huygens - named after Titan's discoverer, the 17th-century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens - piggybacked on Cassini for a journey that followed a complex route, swinging by Venus, Earth and Jupiter to obtain an extra kick from each planet's gravity.

It carries instruments to explore what Titan's atmosphere is made of, and find out whether it has the cold seas of liquid methane and ethane that experts believe exist.

Scientists calculate that, if that were the case, the seas would have waves seven times higher than those on Earth, but they would move more slowly and be further apart.

Temperatures of -180C (-292F) make the prospect of finding Earth-type life extremely unlikely, although one group of US scientists claims conditions on the moon could support specially adapted life forms.

Just in case Huygens is not alone on the moon, a CD containing four pieces of instrumental music composed by French musicians Julien Civange and Louis Haeri is being carried on board.

"The European Space Agency wanted to add artistic content to the mission, to leave some trace of humanity in the unknown, and send a sign to any possible extraterrestrial populations," Mr Civange said.