14 January 2005: Huygens probe lands on Saturn’s moon, Titan

On this day in 2005, the ESA’s Huygens probe landed on the frozen surface of Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.

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On 15 October 1997, the Cassini-Huygens mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral bound for Saturn, with the aim of studying the planet's rings and its moons. The seven-year journey sent the 5.7-tonne craft swinging round the sun, passing Venus twice and Earth once, then shooting off into the outer solar system, passing Jupiter in December 2000, entering orbit around Saturn in July 2004.

After another seven months' orbit, Huygens detached from Cassini on Christmas Day, 2014, and made a 21-day journey towards Titan. On this day in 2005, it came into contact with Titan's atmosphere, and began its descent through the moon's atmosphere. All the way down, Huygens was sending data back about its composition, the pressure, and any electromagnetic activity.

After the two and a half hour descent, Huygens landed successfully on Titan's frozen surface, making it the first object from Earth to land on a planet in the outer solar system. Once there, it transmitted data for 72 minutes before contact was lost. The data it sent back surprised scientists. The atmosphere was made up of nitrogen and methane, and it was discovered that large quantities of methane lay beneath the surface which seemed to be composed of a soft, dry, sand-like substance. It also found river-like drainage networks similar to those on earth, and large dry lake beds.

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The mission was a joint venture between America's Nasa, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) with Nasa providing the orbiter Cassini, and the ESA providing the lander, Huygens. Its total cost was $3.3bn, of which the US stumped up $2.6bn, the ESA $500m and the Italian Space Agency $160m.

The original Cassini mission was supposed to last just four years, but the orbiter twice had its mission extended. It ended in 2017 in a blaze of glory as it entered Saturn's atmosphere and was destroyed.

Ben Judge
Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin. 

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.

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