2025年11月30日
The Surface of Titan from Huygens
Image Credit: ESA, NASA, JPL, U. Arizona, Huygens Lander
Explanation: If you could stand on Titan — what would you see? The featured color view from Titan gazes across an unfamiliar and distant landscape on Saturn’s largest moon. The scene was recorded by ESA‘s Huygens probe in 2005 after a 2.5-hour descent through a thick atmosphere of nitrogen laced with methane. Bathed in an eerie orange light at ground level, rocks strewn about the scene could well be composed of water and hydrocarbons frozen solid at an inhospitable temperature of negative 179 degrees C. The large light-toned rock below and left of center is only about 15 centimeters across and lies 85 centimeters away. The saucer-shaped spacecraft is believed to have penetrated about 15 centimeters into a place on Titan’s surface that had the consistency of wet sand or clay. Huygen’s batteries enabled the probe to take and transmit data for more than 90 minutes after landing. Titan’s bizarre chemical environment may bear similarities to planet Earth’s before life evolved.
Tomorrow’s picture: open space
惠更斯号拍摄的土卫六泰坦表面
影像提供: ESA, NASA, JPL, U. Arizona, Huygens Lander
说明: 如果你能站在土卫六泰坦上，你会看到什么？这张来自土卫六泰坦的彩色照片展现了土星最大卫星上陌生而遥远的景象。这幅场景是由欧洲空间局的惠更斯探测器在2005年所拍摄，当时它经过2.5小时的下降，穿越了一层由氮气和甲烷组成的浓厚大气层。在地面上，散落的岩石沐浴在诡异的橙色光芒中，它们很可能是由水和碳氢化合物在摄氏零下179度的极端低温下冻结成固体。画面中心下方偏左的浅色岩石直径仅约15厘米，距离约为85公分。据信，这艘碟形探测器已经深入土卫六泰坦表面约15公分的地方，该地区的质地如同湿沙或黏土。惠更斯探测器的电池使其在着陆后能够持续拍摄并传输数据超过90分钟。土卫六泰坦的奇特化学环境可能与地球在生命出现演化之前的环境有相似之处。
明日的图片: open space
