Huygens on Titan – 1 Year Later

Since 18 months, Cassini and Huygens have been providing otherworldly images of Saturn and its stable of satellites. The highlight so far was the arrival on 14 January 2005 of ESA’s Huygens probe on the giant moon Titan. Both the lander and the orbiting Cassini, which carried out 8 close flybys of Titan in 2005, have opened new vistas on this Earth-like satellite. This week, the Huygens science teams are meeting in Paris to celebrate this historic landing, the first ever on an object of the outer solar system. Today’s Exchange reviews the latest science results – including the still open question of the origins of the moon’s large quantities of methane in its atmosphere. The programme will feature interviews with Jean-Pierre Lebreton, Huygens ESA programme manager, and with Jonathan Lunine, interdisciplinary scientist. It will also present new spectacular images of Titan’s surface, and animations of the probe’s descent compiled from the data it sent back to Earth. Interviews in English, French and Italian (Lunine)