Friday, January 14, 2005


Yahoo! News - European Space Probe Makes Safe Titan Landing
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - Europe's Huygens space probe landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, on Friday, sending back signals that it made a safe descent and its scientific experiments in the mysterious atmosphere had gone as planned.

Parachutes designed to smooth its approach deployed on time and Huygens survived on Titan's hostile surface for at least two hours after landing, surprising delighted scientists.

"We can say this afternoon we have ... a scientific success," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director-general of the European Space Agency, in a press conference from its operations center in Germany monitored on NASA TV.

CNN has a picture up. Very cool stuff!