Huygens Landed with a 'Splat'

Summary (Jan 18, 2005): There were three scenarios for the landing on Titan, assuming all went well with the hardware itself. The Huygens probe could land on solid ground, in mud, or in liquid like a lake or even ocean. The three choices could be summarized as: Would humanity's first encounter with another planet's moon end with a thud, splat or splash?

Display Options:

Huygens Landed with a 'Splat'

Picking Between 'Thud', 'Splat', or 'Splash'

based on ESA report

Descent image from Huygens. First 'best-guess' view of landing site in white circle. Click image for larger view.
Image Credit: ESA

Although Huygens landed on Titan's surface on 14 January, activity at ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, continues at a furious pace. Scientists are still working to refine the exact location of the probe's landing site, seen in the right image.

While Huygens rests frozen at -180 degrees Celsius on Titan's landscape, a symbolic finale to the engineering and flight phase of this historic mission, scientists have taken little time off to eat or sleep.

They have been processing, examining and analyzing data, and sometimes even dreaming about it when they sleep. There's enough data to keep Huygens scientists busy for months and even years to come.

One of the most interesting early results is the descent profile. Some 30 scientists in the Descent Trajectory Working Group are working to recreate the trajectory of the probe as it parachuted down to Titan's surface.

The descent profile provides the important link between measurements made by instruments on the Huygens probe and the Cassini orbiter. It is also needed to understand where the probe landed on Titan. Having a profile of a probe entering an atmosphere on a Solar System body is important for future space missions.

Piecewise radial view of panoramic target site. Click image for larger view.
Image Credit: ESA

After Huygens' main parachute unfurled in the upper atmosphere, the probe slowed to a little over 50 meters per second, or about the speed you might drive on a highway.

In the lower atmosphere, the probe decelerated to approximately 5.4 meters per second, and drifted sideways at about 1.5 meters per second, a leisurely walking pace.

"The ride was bumpier than we thought it would be," said Martin Tomasko, Principal Investigator for the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR), the instrument that provided Huygens' stunning images among other data.

The probe rocked more than expected in the upper atmosphere. During its descent through high-altitude haze, it tilted at least 10 to 20 degrees. Below the haze layer, the probe was more stable, tilting less than 3 degrees.

Tomasko and others are still investigating the reason for the bumpy ride and are focusing on a suspected change in wind profile at about 25 kilometers altitude.

The bumpy ride was not the only surprise during the descent.

Surface image from Titan shows ice blocks strewn around. Click image for larger view.
Image Credit: ESA

Scientists had theorized that the probe would drop out of the haze at between 70 and 50 kilometers. In fact, Huygens began to emerge from the haze only at 30 kilometers above the surface.

When the probe landed, it was not with a thud, or a splash, but a 'splat'. It landed in Titanian 'mud'.

"I think the biggest surprise is that we survived landing and that we lasted so long," said DISR team member Charles See. "There wasn't even a glitch at impact. That landing was a lot friendlier than we anticipated."

DISR's downward-looking High Resolution Imager camera lens apparently accumulated some material, which suggests the probe may have settled into the surface. "Either that, or we steamed hydrocarbons off the surface and they collected onto the lens," said See.

Listen to sounds from the microphone onboard the Huygens during its descent (wav file format, approx. 600 kB each):

"The probe's parachute disappeared from sight on landing, so the probe probably isn't pointing east, or we would have seen the parachute," said DISR team member Mike Bushroe.

When the mission was designed, it was decided that the DISR's 20-Watt landing lamp should turn on 700 meters above the surface and illuminate the landing site for as long as 15 minutes after touchdown.

"In fact, not only did the landing lamp turn on at exactly 700 meters, but also it was still shining more than an hour later, when Cassini moved beyond Titan's horizon for its ongoing exploratory tour of the giant moon and the Saturnian system," said Tomasko.

Related Web Pages

Rendezvous with Titan
Huygens, Phone Home
Saturn-- JPL Cassini Main Page
Lord of the Rings
Space Science Institute, Imaging Team Boulder, Colorado
Saturn: The Closest Pass
Prebiotic Laboratory
Planet Wannabe
Where is Cassini Now?

Note: Life and Giant Planets

Display Options:

Tuesday, January 18, 2005