Titan Touchdown: Huygens Descent Movie

Explanation: What would it look like to land on Saturn's moon Titan? The European Space Agency 's Huygens probe set down on the Solar System's cloudiest moon in 2005, and a time-lapse video of its descent images was created. Huygens separated from the robotic Cassini spacecraft soon after it achieved orbit around Saturn in late 2004 and began approaching Titan . For two hours after arriving, Huygens plummeted toward Titan 's surface, recording at first only the shrouded moon's opaque atmosphere. The computerized truck-tire sized probe soon deployed a parachute to slow its descent, pierced the thick clouds, and began transmitting images of a strange surface far below never before seen in visible light . Landing in a dried sea and surviving for 90 minutes, Huygen's returned unique images of a strange plain of dark sandy soil strewn with smooth, bright, fist-sized rocks of ice.