Cassini/Huygens Project (1996-2004) - by TPO

Cassini/Huygens Project (1996-2004) * 

~ by TPO ~

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The European Science Agency's Huygens spent eight years and 934 million miles stuck, barnacle-like, to Cassini's much larger belly. On Christmas Eve 2004, Cassini and Huygens split. Huygens landed on Saturn's moon ,Titan, three weeks later.
[...]Huygens had the most ambitious goal of all: It is the only machine to land on a world beyond the asteroid belt.
Huygens's final design, a hockey puck set in a tea saucer, was a hedge against the unknown. It would withstand the friction of Titan's atmosphere. It was prepared to float, should it land on an ethane sea. But first the saucer had to fly.

Titan's surface was a mystery before the ESA and NASA sent the Huygens probe to investigate it. The moon, larger than Pluto or the planet Mercury, is a whopper of a satellite.
Observed from space, Titan is a hazy orb. Methane transforms into hydrogen  cyanide and other hydrocarbons in its nitrogen-rich atmosphere, coloring the sky orange.

On the moon, the familiar has a chemically alien twist. The scientists continued: “Instead of liquid water, Titan has liquid methane. Instead of silicate rocks, Titan has frozen water ice. Instead of dirt, Titan has hydrocarbon particles settling out of the atmosphere.” Titan's twist on Earthly features could in theory support microbial life, some chemists say, despite the frigid temperatures.
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* Source: "Speaking of Science: Cassini’s most impressive feat: Dropping a moon lander on Titan" - by Ben Guarino, The Washington Post, 9/13/17
 

Jokes à la carte! - by Bulletin Board (Pioneer Press)

Jokes à la carte! 

- by Bulletin Board (Pioneer Press) -