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\nAt first glance, this scene may look like a reptilian eye or a textured splash of orange paint, but it is actually a fish-eye view of Saturn\u2019s moon Titan.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis image was taken as ESA\u2019s Huygens probe, part of the international Cassini\u2013Huygens mission, descended through Titan\u2019s atmosphere before landing on the moon\u2019s surface. This was the first landing ever performed in the outer Solar System, and it is still the most distant landing accomplished by any spacecraft or probe.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis landing took place 10 years ago this week, on 14 January 2005. At the moment this image was taken, Huygens was roughly five km above Titan\u2019s surface.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe probe\u2019s planned landing site looked a lot like a shoreline, so scientists were unsure whether it would touch down on solid ground or splash into a liquid sea. Rather than a splashdown or crash landing, it actually landed with more of a \u2018splat\u2019 in Titan\u2019s mud, a sand-like material made up of grains of ice. The images sent back by Huygens also showed rounded cobbles of ice strewn across the area. These cobbles are likely made of hydrocarbon and water ice and are thought to be smoothed by flowing liquids.\n<\/p>\n
\nObservations from the Cassini orbiter have identified several large seas and hundreds of liquid hydrocarbon lakes speckled across Titan\u2019s polar regions. Scientists believe that Titan experiences a seasonal ebbing and flowing of liquid on its surface with intense bursts of torrential rainfall and flash floods \u2014 composed of methane and organic compounds \u2014 cut by drier periods during which this liquid evaporates. The lakes around the moon\u2019s polar regions reflect this cycle, shrinking and growing depending on the season.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe Cassini\u2013Huygens mission, launched in 1997 as a joint endeavour of ESA, NASA and Italy\u2019s ASI space agency, is named after Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens, two prominent astronomers of the 17th century. Huygens observed the rings of Saturn and discovered Titan, which is the planet\u2019s largest moon, in 1655. Cassini discovered four of Saturn\u2019s moons \u2013 Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys, and Dione \u2013 between 1671 and 1684, extensively studied Saturn\u2019s surface markings, and discovered the wide, dark gap in the planet\u2019s rings that is now dubbed the Cassini Division.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis image is a stereographic (fish-eye) projection taken with the descent imager\/spectral radiometer on Huygens.\n<\/p>\n