Explanation:
Will the Huygens probe land or splash down?
In the next few days, the
Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting
Saturn will release a
probe that will descend toward
Saturn's largest moon in mid-January.
That moon,
Titan,
has a surface normally hidden from view by thick
methanecloud decks.
What the car-sized flying-saucer-shaped
probe will find is unknown.
Once reaching the surface,
Huygens may survive for as long as 150 minutes and
take as many as 1,100 images.
These images will be beamed up to the passing
Cassini mothership for subsequent transmission to a
waiting Earth.
The Huygens probe is
depicted above entering Titan's atmosphere and deploying its
parachute.
Uncovering the most mysterious moon in the
Solar System may reveal a surface so strange that
images
of it may not be immediately understood.
Discussion consensus: Australian strange streak is plausibly just a
flying insect.
