More neat space stuff

By Aussiegirl

As long as we are flying around in space -- take a look at the latest pictures from the Huygens-Cassini space probe showing the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan, a place that has a lot of earthlike features and may possibly even support life.

Huygens-Cassini was launched 7 years ago and has traveled 1.25 billion km. It's so far away that it takes light, traveling at the well-known velocity of 186,000 mps a full 67 MINUTES to reach earth. Just imagine the engineering skill to enable this craft to travel so far and perfectly set down a robot on the surface of a distant planet-like moon. Simply mind-boggling. I'm excited and fascinated by this news. Who knows? Maybe there's a LGM (little green men) base already there.


Read the the full article at: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/4084236.html

Also check out the Huygens Cassini news at:
http:www.geocities.com/amigarana/huygens.html

And the European Space Agency website at:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html

European space officials displayed the first pictures of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan on Friday, black and white images of what appeared to be channels cut by a liquid - like river and streambeds running through hilly terrain.
ESA/NASA/University of Arizona

This is the first image of Titan, from the Huygens probe, taken from 10 miles up.

The first pictures were taken from about 10 miles above the surface as the European space probe Huygens descended by parachute to a safe landing, buoying hopes that the mission could shed light on the origins of life on Earth. A narrow-field picture taken from the surface after the space probe landed was released later."I think all of us continue to be amazed as we watch our solar system unveil," NASA science administrator Alphonso Diaz said as the images were displayed on screens at mission control in Darmstadt, Germany.

"It challenges all our preconceptions that all these planets are static places. Seeing a planet emerge that has dynamics and complexity to it is just amazing," he added.

Huygens was spun off from the Cassini mother ship on Dec. 24 before its descent by parachute to the surface of Titan on Friday, capping a seven-year journey.