Cassini and Huygens, outdoing expectations yet again

[Kit]

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/SEMQ1QQ3K3E_0.html


It's been over a year that the Martian rovers have been operational. They've found that there once was water on Mars. They've outlived how long they were expected to perform.

And again NASA, JPL, and ESA have outdone themselves and landed on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Titan is so amazing because of it's atmosphere and it's surface...because scientists think that the conditions on Titan are very much like the conditions Earth had before life emerged.

Cassini flew through Saturn's rings months ago, deployed the Huygens probe on Christmas...and last night, the probe spent 2 and a half hours gently falling to the ground. We've landed on another world, a world further from us then we've ever landed before, two times further from us then Jupiter is.

Huygens was suppose to last -- if it made it to the surface -- for two hours...and it's already lasted seven. More then that, it's batteries are at room temperature, meaning that Titan might be a LOT warmer then we thought it was because of it's atomosphere. Even more astonishing, Australia is picking up the Huygens' signal.

The most interesting thing is that Titan might harbor hydrocarbons or ammino acids....not life...but the building blocks of it.
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AIM: KitMurphyHR
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[HR-Trevor]

[Kit]

[SoulTorn]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

Some early images from Huygens.(Some sound, as well)

Something else I managed to pull from the fark thread that's kinda interesting:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/spinoffs.html

Technological spin-offs from space exploration.

-Chris
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