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Huygens (/ ˈ h ɔɪ ɡ ən z / HOY-gənz) was an atmospheric entry robotic space probe that landed successfully on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005. Built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), launched by NASA, it was part of the Cassini–Huygens mission and became the first spacecraft to land on Titan and the farthest landing from Earth a spacecraft has ever made. [3]
(Lower left corner) Huygens' trajectory views from the south, a scale bar for comparison to the height of Mount Everest, colored arrows that point to the sun and to the Cassini orbiter. (Top left corner) A close-up view of the Huygens probe highlighting large and unexpected parachute movements, a scale bar for comparison to human height.
The Huygens probe, supplied by the European Space Agency (ESA) and named after the 17th century Dutch astronomer who first discovered Titan, Christiaan Huygens, scrutinized the clouds, atmosphere, and surface of Saturn's moon Titan in its descent on January 15, 2005. It was designed to enter and brake in Titan's atmosphere and parachute a fully ...
View of Saturn from Cassini, taken in March 2004, shortly before the spacecraft's orbital insertion in July 2004. This article provides a timeline of the Cassini–Huygens mission (commonly called Cassini). Cassini was a collaboration between the United States' NASA, the European Space Agency ("ESA"), and the Italian Space Agency ("ASI") to send a probe to study the Saturnian system, including ...
Titan is the most distant body from Earth to have a space probe land on its surface. [116] The Huygens probe descends by parachute and lands on Titan on January 14, 2005. The Huygens probe landed just off the easternmost tip of a bright region now called Adiri. The probe photographed pale hills with dark "rivers" running down to a dark plain.
In October 1997, the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40. The mission was designed to study Saturn and its system, including its rings and moons. The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft consisted of NASA's Cassini orbiter and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. [11]
In 2009, the probe discovered and confirmed four new satellites. Its primary mission ended in 2008, when the spacecraft completed 74 orbits around the planet. In 2010, the probe began its first extended mission, the Cassini Equinox Mission. The Cassini Solstice Mission, the second mission extension, lasted through September 2017. [6]
The Huygens atmospheric probe's descent into Titan, with video and data from 2005 Titan is similar to the very early Earth and can provide clues to how life may have arisen on Earth .