Ok, so back to one of my childhood fantasies...space exploration. Something which has been lost in the news what with the stopping of the WMD hunt is the Cassini probe. This is a space probe which is orbiting Saturn right now. There have been many many space probes, but this one is unique in that it has/had another probe, called Huygens, which is attached which was designed to land on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. So anyways, Huygens just landed on Titan last night! Here are some details.
Ok, so you wonder why I'm so excited about landing on a barren moon? Well, Titan is not so barren. In fact, it's one of the most likely places to have the conditions for life since it's got a thick atmosphere and some other things friendly to life. So it's pretty exciting to think there might be primitave life forms there. Plus, Huygens doesn't just have instruments, it has cameras to show us what the surface looks like. Going back to my childhood, I'd just imagine freaky alien creatures crawling around the surface.
Ok, I'll spare you all from my childhood memories. Just know that this is a huge accomplishment for space exploration. We'll soon know more about what Huygens saw as data is sent back to Earth. If there are indeed freaky alien creature crawling around, I'm assuming I won't be the first person to tell you. Keep on the lookout on the news sites!
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