Titan is larger than the planet Mercury. It is also the second
largest moon in the Solar System, and the only moon with a dense
atmosphere. Just as on Earth, the main gas is nitrogen, but
Titan is much colder. Its surface is in deep freeze at minus 180
degrees Celsius. If it became warmer, Titan might be able to
support life. Huygens descending through Titan's atmosphere
Until the arrival of the NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens spacecraft in
2004, little was known about Titan. Its surface is hidden
beneath a thick blanket of orange cloud. On 14 January 2005,
ESA's Huygens probe made an historic landing on Titan. During
its 2½ hour descent, Huygens was blown eastward by high level
winds of more than 100 km per hour. The winds reversed direction
at a height of 7 km, carrying Huygens gently westward during the
final minutes of the descent. Huygens found an icy landscape
marked by dark channels snaking towards a smooth ‘shoreline’. |
|| | Titan's first close-up Titan’s atmosphere is about 5 per
cent methane. The action o