Huygens on Titan\'s surface



Huygens could have hit and cracked an ice ‘pebble’ on landing on Titan. Then it slumped into a sandy surface possibly dampened by liquid methane. The Surface Science Package (SSP) revealed this. But, this shouldn’t have happened if there was tide on the Titan’s surface. And if it actually is, life on the Saturn’s moon is unlikely. To cover the wide range of properties that may be encountered on the Titan’s surface, from liquids or very soft material to solid, hard ice, the SSP comprised nine independent sensors. Some were designed primarily for landing on a solid surface and others for a liquid landing, with eight also operating during the descent.



The surface of the Saturn’s moon might be analogous to wet sand or textured tar/wet clay. The ’sand’ could be made of ice grains from impact or fluvial erosion, wetted by liquid methane. Alternatively it might be a collection of photochemical products and fine-grained ice, making a somewhat sticky ‘tar’. That the surface was neither hard (like solid ice) nor very compressible (like a blanket of fluffy aerosol), is revealed by the penetrometry and accelerometry measurements on impact. The probe had penetrated about 10 cm into surface. It is settling gradually by a few millimeters after landing and tilting by a fraction of a degree.



Via: Physorg.com, Reuters