Branched system of drainage channels at the Huygens landing site
Branched system of drainage channels at the Huygens landing site
During the slow descent through the atmosphere of Saturn, the Huygens landing probe from the European Space Agency (ESA) that had been in the Saturn system with NASA's Cassini orbiter since 14 January 2005, sent back pictures of a complex network of valleys that form a larger flat, low-lying area.
The pictures, which show a mosaic of peaks of between seven and thirteen kilometres in height, caused a sensation in the science world, although they revealed that the satellite Titan did not have liquid hydrocarbon oceans, though at certain times fluid did appear to flow on the surface, which have eroded the valleys out of the icy landscape. This may well be what can be seen in the lower third of the picture. The colourful mosaic is probably the result of differences in light intensity on the surface of Titan under its atmosphere of nitrogen and methane.
