A soft solid surface on Titan as revealed by the Huygens Surface Science Package
Zarnecki, John C., Leese, Mark R., Hathi, Brijen, Ball, Andrew J., Hagermann, Axel, Towner, Martin C., Lorenz, Ralph D., McDonnell, J. Anthony M., Green, Simon F., Patel, Manish R., Ringrose, Timothy J., Rosenberg, Philip D., Atkinson, Karl R., Paton, Mark D., Banaszkiewicz, Marek, Clark, Benton C., Ferri, Francesca, Fulchignoni, Marcello, Ghafoor, Nadeem A.L., Kargl, Günter, Svedhem, Håkan, Delderfield, John, Grande, Manuel, Parker, David J., Challenor, Peter G. and Geake, John E. (2005) A soft solid surface on Titan as revealed by the Huygens Surface Science Package. Nature, 438, (7069), 792-795. (doi:10.1038/nature04211)
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1038/nature04211
Description/Abstract
The surface of Saturn's largest satellite —Titan — is largely obscured by an optically thick atmospheric haze, and so its nature has been the subject of considerable speculation and discussion1. The Huygens probe entered Titan's atmosphere on 14 January 2005 and descended to the surface using a parachute system2. Here we report measurements made just above and on the surface of Titan by the Huygens Surface Science Package3, 4. Acoustic sounding over the last 90 m above the surface reveals a relatively smooth, but not completely flat, surface surrounding the landing site. Penetrometry and accelerometry measurements during the probe impact event reveal that the surface was neither hard (like solid ice) nor very compressible (like a blanket of fluffy aerosol); rather, the Huygens probe landed on a relatively soft solid surface whose properties are analogous to wet clay, lightly packed snow and wet or dry sand. The probe settled gradually by a few millimetres after landing.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Related URLs: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/en...med_docsum http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1038/...ature04211 |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QE Geology Q Science > QB Astronomy T Technology > TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics |
| Divisions: | University Structure - Pre August 2011 > National Oceanography Centre (NERC) |
| ePrint ID: | 20381 |
| URI: | http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/20381 |
| Deposited On: | 23 Feb 2006 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Apr 2012 02:15 |
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