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Europe Arrives at the New Frontier - The Huygens Landing on Titan

Europe Arrives at the New Frontier - The Huygens Landing on Titan

Publication date: 15 February 2005

Authors: Lebreton et al.

Journal: ESA Bulletin
Volume: 121
Page: 6-9
Year: 2005

Copyright: ESA

On 14 January 2005, after a marathon seven-year journey through the Solar System aboard the Cassini spacecraft, ESA's Huygens probe successfully descended through the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and landed safely on its surface. It was mankind's first successful attempt to land a probe on another world in the outer Solar System. Following its release from the Cassini mothership on 25 December, Huygens reached Titan's outer atmosphere after 20 days and a 4 million kilometre cruise. The probe started its descent through Titan's hazy cloud layers from an altitude of about 1270 km at 09:06 UTC. During the following three minutes, Huygens had to decelerate from 18 000 to 1400 km per hour.

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