Explanation: After a seven year interplanetary voyage on board the the Cassini spacecraft, the European Space Agency's Huygens probe parachuted to a historic landing on Saturn's moon Titan on January 14. Above are two of the first raw images Huygens recorded of the mystery moon's surface - a view from an altitude of 16 kilometers (left), and surface level. The altitude image resolves features as small as about 40 meters across while in the dramatic surface level vista, the sizes of the blocks, potentially ice boulders, will be determined after further image processing. Remarkably, the views of Titan's surface suggest a similarity to eroded surfaces on Earth and Mars.

News: Huygens Updates

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
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& Michigan Tech. U.