Huygens: first landing in the outer solar system (Titan)
Huygens: primer aterrizaje en el sistema solar exterior (Titán)
- Date
- 14 de enero de 2005 · confidence high
- Place
- European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), Darmstadt, Germany
- Credited to
- ESA, NASA and ASI (Cassini-Huygens mission)
- Field
- Movement
What was discovered
The European Huygens probe, launched with Cassini, parachuted through Titan's atmosphere and transmitted images and data from its surface for about 72 minutes. It revealed dry channels, rounded ice pebbles and methane near the surface.
The place is the ESA centre that operated the probe; the Cassini spacecraft was controlled from JPL. Cassini entered Saturn orbit in 2004 and ended in 2017 by plunging into the planet's atmosphere.
What it led to
- the most distant landing from Earth to date (about 1.4 billion km)
- the image of Titan as a world with a methane cycle akin to Earth's water cycle
- the design of Dragonfly, NASA's rotorcraft for Titan