KECK IMAGES OF TITAN AT HUYGENS IMPACT<br /><br />MAUNA KEA (January 14, 2005) The Huygens probe impacted Titan's<br />atmosphere at 09:06 GMT Friday morning, with an expected landing on<br />Titan's mysterious surface three hours later. This near-infrared image<br />(http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/news/science/huygens/index.html) shows<br />Titan at the moment Huygens reached its target.<br /><br />"Although no disturbances in Titan's atmosphere were detected, the<br />observations provide the best images that characterize the satellite at<br />the moment of probe entry", says Antonin Bouchez, a staff member at the<br />Keck observatory, who was leading the observing effort.<br /><br />"It was worth getting up in the middle of the night for this historic<br />moment", says Fred Chaffee, director of the Keck Observatory, "despite<br />the bad weather on the mountain". Winds were blowing at 40-50 mph,<br />while the mountain top itself was still cloaked with snow and ice from<br />a recent storm. Other team members that particpated in the observations<br />were David LeMignant from the Keck Observatory, Imke de Pater, a<br />professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Michael<br />Brown, a professor at Caltech.<br /><br />Titan is of particular interest to scientists because it is the only<br />moon in our solar system with a dense, methane-rich, nitrogen<br />atmosphere, reminiscent of our own atmosphere here on Earth. The moon<br />is cloaked in a thick, smog-like haze produced by the breakup of<br />methane by sunlight. Further study of this moon could provide clues to<br />planetary formation and evolution and, perhaps, about the early days of<br />Earth as well.<br /><br />To get a closer look at Titan, scientists from three different<br />international space agencies developed the Cassini-Huygens mission, a<br />spacecraft orbiter that arrived in Saturn's orbit in July 2004 after a<br />seven-year voyage. The four-year mission will include 70 orbits around<br />the ringed planet with an array of instruments to study the planet, its<br />rings and its 30 known moons.<br /><br />The Huygen's probe detached from Cassini on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24th,<br />2004. The probe has since been falling to Titan and entered the<br />atmosphere shortly after midnight, local time on Friday morning (09:06<br />GMT) January 14, 2005. Three sets of parachutes were to slow the probe<br />and to provide a stable platform for scientific measurements.<br />Instruments on board will collect information about the atmosphere's<br />chemical composition and the clouds surrounding Titan during its 2-2.5<br />hour descent. The data will be radioed to the Cassini orbiter, which<br />will then relay the data to Earth.<br /><br />Near-infrared images were taken from the W. M. Keck Observatory with<br />the near infrared camera, NIRC2, and the adaptive optics system at the<br />time of probe entry. The team had planned imaging sequences to look for<br />thermal emissions or condensates at the probe entry site. <br /><br /># # #