huygens lander

Storms And Waves

It has enchanted astronomers for centuries, but Saturn close-up looks wholly new

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Ringed Victory

Scientists are triumphant over extraordinary new images from Saturn and its moons—rivers of methane, ice volcanoes, ferocious storms and more

The penetrometer was the first thing to hit. The stick-like probe on the bottom of the Huygens lander punched aside a hard pebble made of water ice on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and sliced down through five inches of soft, muddy material. Scientists watching from Earth were ecstatic—the probe was not expected to survive the landing—but at the same time puzzled: If Titan really was, as they suspected, much like a young Earth, where were the liquid oceans predicted to cover the surface?

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