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Saturn Moon Pictures Excite Scientists

Posted on: Saturday, 15 January 2005, 06:00 CST

DARMSTADT, Germany - The images came streaking across the cosmos from Saturn's moon Titan, and scientists grew increasingly ecstatic with the scenes: hilly terrain riddled with channels carved by a liquid.

The men and women running the mission heaved a collective sigh. They had been waiting seven years for the Huygens space probe to reach Titan and deliver the first close-up look of Titan, the only moon in the solar system known to have a significant atmosphere.

One picture, taken about 10 miles above the surface as the spacecraft descended by parachute to a safe landing, showed snaking, dark lines cut into the light-colored surface.

"Clearly there is liquid matter flowing on the surface of Titan," said scientist Marty Tomasko of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, which made the probe's camera.

He said the liquid appeared to be flowing into a dark area at the right side of the image.

"It almost looks like a river delta," he said. "It could be liquid methane, or hydrocarbons that settled out of the haze" that envelops Titan.

Another image, taken about five miles above the surface, showed light and dark masses, which Tomasko said seemed to be shadows, indicating a varied terrain. The dark areas appeared to be flooded or to have been so at an earlier time.

A third image taken at the surface showed several large white chunks - boulders or blocks of water ice - in the foreground and a stretch of gray surface behind them.

"There aren't too many planets with liquid," Tomasko said. "There's Earth, and now there's Titan."

Titan is the first moon other than the Earth's to be explored. Scientists believe its atmosphere is similar to that of a younger Earth, and studying it could provide clues to how life arose here.

"I think all of us continue to be amazed as we watch our solar system unveil," NASA science administrator Alphonso Diaz said as the extraordinary images were displayed on screens at mission control in Darmstadt. "It challenges all our preconceptions that all these planets are static places."

The mission is a joint effort of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian space agency. Huygens was spun off from the Cassini mother ship on Dec. 24.

On Friday it began its long-awaited 2 1/2-hour parachute descent, taking pictures and sampling the atmosphere before landing on Titan, where temperatures are estimated at 292 degrees below zero.

Timers inside the 705-pound probe awakened it just before it entered Titan's atmosphere. Huygens is shaped like a wok and covered with a heat shield to survive the intense heat of entry.

Scientists say they received more than three hours of data from Huygens' descent to Titan, and more than 10 minutes of data from the surface itself.

Applause erupted in Darmstadt as the first signal was picked up. Some mission officials had tears in their eyes.

"The scientific data we are collecting now shall unveil the secrets of this new world," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's general director.

Named after Titan's discoverer, the 17th century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, the probe carried instruments to explore Titan's atmosphere and find out whether it has the cold seas of liquid methane and ethane that have been theorized by scientists.

The $3.3 billion Cassini-Huygens mission was launched on Oct. 15, 1997, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to study Saturn, its spectacular rings and many moons.

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On the Net:

http://saturn.esa.int

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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