Huygens was an atmospheric entry probe that landed successfully on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005. Built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), it was part of the Cassini–Huygens mission and became the first spacecraft ever to land on Titan. The probe was named after the Dutch 17th-century astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan in 1655.
The combined Cassini–Huygens spacecraft was launched from Earth on October 15, 1997.Huygens separated from the Cassini orbiter on December 25, 2004, and landed on Titan on January 14, 2005 near the Xanadu region. This was the first and, so far, only landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System. It touched down on land, although the possibility that it would touch down in an ocean was also taken into account in its design. The probe was designed to gather data for a few hours in the atmosphere, and possibly a short time at the surface. It continued to send data for about 90 minutes after touchdown. It remains the most distant landing of any human-made craft.
Huygens (also Huijgens, Huigens, Huijgen/Huygen, or Huigen) is a Dutchpatronymic surname, meaning "son of Hugo". Most references to "Huygens" are to the polymath Christiaan Huygens. Notable people with the surname include:
Jan Huygen (1563–1611), Dutch voyager and historian
The crater is approximately 456km (283mi) in diameter and can be found at 304.4°W 14.0°S, in the Iapygia quadrangle.
Scientists were delighted to see branched channels in pictures taken with spacecraft that were sent in orbit around Mars. The existence of these channels is strong evidence that much water once flowed on the surface of the planet. Simple organisms may have once lived where water once was. An excellent group of these channels is shown in the picture below from the rim of Huygens taken with THEMIS.
Carbonates (calcium or iron carbonates) were discovered in a crater on the rim of Huygens. The impact on the rim exposed material that had been dug up from the impact that created Huygens. These minerals represent evidence that Mars once had a thicker carbon dioxide atmosphere with abundant moisture. Carbonates of these kinds only form when there is a lot of water. They were found with the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Earlier, the instrument had detected clay minerals. The carbonates were found near the clay minerals. Both of these minerals form in wet environments. It is supposed that billions of years ago Mars was much warmer and wetter. At that time, carbonates would have formed from water and the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. Later the deposits of carbonate would have been buried. The double impact has now exposed the minerals. Earth has vast carbonate deposits in the form of limestone.
The three agencies had sent Cassini, a sophisticated robotic spacecraft, to study Saturn and its complex system of rings and moons in unprecedented detail.The spacecraft also carried a probe, Huygens, built by ESA, to the Saturn system.
proposes such tiny spacecraft ... Most missions are a single spacecraft, perhaps with a smaller attached probe like the Huygens probe attached to the Cassini spacecraft ... These tiny spacecraft could do some course correction, but not much.
photo: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center/Francis Reddy
The EuropeanHuygens spacecraft then landed on Titan, the moon of Saturn, in 2005... It wasn’t the first spacecraft to fly ... An artist’s impression of the Dragonfly spacecraft in flight ... track spacecraft.
The islands were initially spotted in 2014 by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft as it observed the orange haze that surrounds Titan... According to the new study which was published in Geophysical Research Letters, Titan's floating islands are indeed real.
Isle of Might ... These bright and unusually smooth spots dotting the moon's liquid methane and ethane oceans first showed up in observations by NASA's Cassini-Huygens spacecraft in 2013 ... Calving Glaciers ... If they were too dense, they'd sink ... More on Titan.
While Dragonfly will conduct the most in-depth surface exploration of Titan, this will not be the first spacecraft to land on Titan’s surface, as that honor goes to the European Space Agency’s Huygens...
Besides the great discoveries it provided, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft also marked an act of unity in the name of science. This spacecraft, which traveled to Saturn carrying a probe known as ...
Visitors will watch the Huygens spacecraft descend by parachute through Titan’s atmosphere and see what appear to be river valleys and shorelines on the surface of the moon.
This is why the recent spacecraft sent to Saturn was called Cassini, and the lander it carried to Titan, Huygens... Now, thanks to spacecraft, including Cassini, we have had a good, close look at those rings.
Saturn imaged a few nights past, on 17 August ... The giant moon Titan is by far Saturn’s dominant satellite and one of the very special objects in the Solar System, memorably visited in 2004 by the Huygens probe released from the Cassini spacecraft ... .
This made Huygens the first spacecraft to land on a planetary body in the outer solar system and the first landing on a moon aside from Earth’s Moon. While Huygens only transmitted data and images back ...
Woodward News
30 Aug 2023
Woodward News
30 Aug 2023