Saturn's Moon Titan Has Soft and Crusty Surface, Probe Landing
Reveals The surface of Saturn's huge moon Titan has the
consistency of soft, wet sand with a fragile crust on top, a new
analysis of a nearly eight-year-old space probe landing
suggests. Researchers reconstructed the European Space Agency's
Huygens probe landing on Titan, which occurred in January 2005.
They determined that Huygens bounced, slid and wobbled to a stop
10 seconds after first making contact with the moon. The study —
which incorporated data from Huygens' instruments and results
from computer simulations and a drop test with a model — found
that the 400-pound (181-kilogram) probe made a dent 4.7 inches
deep (12 centimeters) upon touching down. Huygens then slid 12
to 16 inches (30 to 40 cm) and wobbled back and forth five times
before finally coming to a rest, researchers said. [Huygens
Probe's Landing Reconstructed (Video)] "A spike in the
acceleration data suggests that during the first wobble, the
probe likely encountered a pebble