"It was an important moment in scientific
history - the furthest from the Earth that a probe has landed,"
Kenneth Renshaw, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) Solar System Ambassador, said of the landing of the
Huygens Probe on Titan last week. Renshaw is also a volunteer
representative for the Saturn Observation Campaign. The
Saturn Observation Campaign (SOC) focuses on the current
Cassini-Huygens space mission around the planet Saturn.
The Huygens Probe landed on Titan, Saturn's
largest moon, around 6:40 a.m. Piggott time on Friday, Jan.
14, according to Renshaw. The probe transmitted data to
the Cassini Orbiter. Renshaw explained that the probe was
too far away from Earth, approximately 720 million miles,
to send it directly to the planet. After the orbiter received
the data, it sent it back to Earth and played it over several
times around 9:15 a.m. Piggott time. He said that data transmission
from all of the sets of instruments was successful.
When asked if there were any surprises in
the data, Renshaw said, "Nothing specific is mentioned,
although there are always surprises. The surface was darker
than expected. As was predicted, there are signs of liquids
and flooding, although the Huygens landed on a solid surface
near some rocks. Cassini received three hours and 37 minutes
of data, including one hour and 10 minutes on the surface.
The rest was collected on the way down, parachuting through
the thick atmosphere. Titan is the second largest moon in
the solar system and the only one with a thick atmosphere
- over 100 miles thick - with more pressure than the Earth's
air. The temperature was about 289 degrees below zero Farenheit."
Renshaw said the mission, known as the Cassini
Project which will study Saturn and its moons, will be about
four years in length, with it possibly being extended if
there are no technical problems and funding is available.
"Thousands of photos of the Saturn
system have been transmitted, with about 300 from the Huygens
Probe. Cassini has 14 sets of instruments and is about the
size of a two-story house. It weighs 4,700 pounds and is
the largest spacecraft ever sent to the planets," he
said. "Huygens is a 770 pound disc with seven sets
of instruments. Cassini-Huygens is a two decade cooperative
effort of NASA (USA), the European Space Agency - the Huygens
Probe control center is based in Darmstadt, Germany - and
the Italian Space Agency. My Ambassador work is for the
Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Ca., which designed most
of the Cassini and some of the Huygens instruments."
The Cassini-Huygens Orbiter and Probe was
launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 15,
1997. The spacecraft entered Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004.
"The Saturn system is nearly at its
closest point to Earth and can be seen in the east, as a
bright "star" in the constellation Gemini",
in the evening. Last week it was at opposition (directly
opposite the Sun in the sky) - in fact if you were on Saturn,
you could see the Earth as a dot passing directly in front
of the Sun. With a small telescope, Saturn can be seen easily,
with its rings, and most of the time Titan can be seen as
a bright point of light nearby," Renshaw said.
Partners in the mission include the U.S.
Air Force, Department of Energy, and academic and industrial
participants from 19 countries. According to NASA, it is
estimated that over 260 scientists will study the data the
ship collects.
Renshaw
will be putting up a display about the mission in the
lobby of the Piggott Community Center. He is pictured
with a display board he uses in his presentations.
