Huygens Images Titan's Surface
After a seven year interplanetary
voyage on board the
the Cassini spacecraft,
the European Space Agency's Huygens probe parachuted to
a historic landing on Saturn's
moon Titan on January 14.
Above are two of the
first raw images Huygens recorded of the
mystery moon's surface - a view from an altitude of
16 kilometers (left),
and surface level.
The altitude image resolves features as small
as about 40 meters.
In the dramatic
surface level vista,
the light toned rock-like object below and left of center
is only about 15 centimeters across and
lies 85 centimeters from the probe.
Remarkably, the views of Titan's surface
suggest a similarity to eroded surfaces
on Earth and Mars.