ESA / NASA / University of Arizona
Probing Titan
Here's a look at the successful mission to land the Huygens probe, launched by the European Space Agency and NASA, on one of Saturn's moons -- a victory for science and cross-border collaboration
Since the beginning of space exploration in the 1950s, most of the big milestones have been marked by Americans or Russians. But on Jan. 14, 2005, Europe added its own proud chapter to the history books, when a probe built by the European Space Agency landed on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.
The landing of the Huygens probe, part of the Cassini-Huygens mission launched jointly by the ESA and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was a triumph for science -- and for cross-border teamwork.
A multinational group of scientists led by Jean-Pierre Lebreton has worked on the project since the 1980s. The probe was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 1997 aboard the NASA-built Cassini spacecraft and arrived at Saturn last year.
Now, Lebreton and his colleagues are getting their reward, as they analyze the images and data that Huygens began transmitting back to Earth after it landed. Scientists are especially interested in Titan because its atmosphere is believed to contain chemical compounds similar to those that existed on Earth billions of years ago.
Data from the Huygens probe, combined with those provided from the Cassini spacecraft on its repeated flybys of Titan, could help understand the evolution of Earth's atmosphere at the time when life first appeared on the planet.