00:00almost 20 years after launch the Cassini spacecraft continues to send back stunning images from
00:18Saturn and as Cassini's end approaches on September the 15th this joint ESA and NASA
00:25mission can recall some spectacular successes one of its highlights remains the first ever
00:32landing on an alien moon when in 2005 Cassini's European probe Huygens made contact with the
00:41surface of Titan Saturn's largest moon Titan is the only moon with a thick atmosphere and Huygens
00:50took several hours to descend by parachute onto an unknown world inside a control room at the
00:58European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt Germany mission scientists and the world's press
01:04awaited confirmation that Huygens had landed the signal was received via the Greenbank telescope
01:12in the USA from a European spacecraft 1.2 billion kilometers away it used the same power as a
01:19cell phone and was described as more challenging than looking for a needle in a haystack with an
01:27extraordinary effort that I still frankly can't believe the radio astronomers of the world the
01:35world gathered together to look at the little telephone signal telephone level signal coming from the other
01:49side of the solar system and after an anxious wait in the control room the scientific data and images began
01:56to arrive meanwhile the audience was able to hear Huygens radar echoes gradually rise in pitch as it approached touchdown
02:06what is absolutely remarkable is that in that entire three hours and 36 or 37 minutes of data we cannot find a single missing data frame that the link and the quality of the data was absolutely superb
02:31was absolutely superb so we are the first visitors of Titan and scientific data that we are collecting now shall unveil the secrets of this new world
02:46after releasing the first image of this new alien world color images showed incredible views of Titan from four altitudes ranging from 150 kilometers to 15 kilometers
02:59two and less than half a kilometer above the moon surface studying Titan has revealed a moon with many possible parallels to earth but it took a change in season before scientists discovered that Titan rained but it did not rain water
03:18the temperature at the surface of Titan is about minus 180 degrees so it's very cold
03:25the landscapes of Titan look a lot like those we have on earth we have rivers lakes seas almost oceans of methane
03:33it rains it rains methane or a mix of ethane and methane so there are lots of meteorological phenomena or geophysical phenomena on Titan that makes you think of what happens on earth
03:45but the ingredients are quite different
03:52the Cassini spacecraft made its 127th close flyby of Titan in April this year another opportunity to study its hydrocarbon lakes and marmalade colored skies
04:04there are over 60 other moons around Saturn each with their own surprises but when Huygens landed on Titan surface it made history
04:11the European probe science instruments determine the structure of the atmosphere made the first direct measurements of winds on the moon and found hints of a subsurface ocean beneath its frozen surface
04:26there are more mysteries to unravel but thanks to Huygens together with the discovery of organic molecules in the upper atmosphere by Cassini Titan has been revealed as one of the most interesting objects in our solar system
