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ONLINE EDITION POWERED BY IOL Wednesday 19th January

WORLD End of an era for scientists on Saturn mission - but 'Titanic' Cape Town task ahead Min: 23ºC Search Jobs Max: 33ºC Search Wheels January 18, 2005 Rain: 30% Search Property Partly cloudy and hot Other Classifieds Darmstadt, Germany: "The gods smiled on us," said researcher David Southwood, one of becoming partly cloudy Book an Ad about 250 scientists and technicians who are now happily out of a job following the later with a 30% chance successful conclusion of the Huygens-Cassini mission to Titan. of showers or thunderstorms (Fresh to Friday marked the end of the mission for the men and women who succeeded in landing strong SE winds over the Huygens probe on the brooding, vast moon of Saturn. southern False Bay) See IOL's 5-day forecast Advanced Search But the task is just beginning for those who will analyse the extraordinarily detailed pictures and scientific data sent back across a 1.5 billion kilometre void during the space capsule's descent and landing. Babynet The data from Huygens will provide work for a new generation of researchers, said Book a Flight Athena Courtenis, a planetologist at France's Meudon observatory. Car Hire The European-built probe, two-thirds the length of a VW Beetle, sent pictures and data Car Insurance to its American mothership, the Cassini space craft, which relayed them to a National Casino Aeronautics and Space Administration facility in the United States. Cellphones Front Page Dating South Africa At best, scientists had hoped Huygens would keep transmitting for three brief minutes Education World after hitting Titan's surface. Opinion Home Loans Sport Instead, they said instruments probably continued to function for at least three hours Long-term Weight Entertainment after the 15km-an-hour touchdown. Loss Motoring - NEW Medical Aid Top 10 Stories "Titan has already given us much more than we expected," said Jean-Pierre Lebreton, Play US/UK lotto the director of the Huygens mission at the European Space Agency. Shopping Vehicle & Asset Researchers, who believe Titan may provide Finance clues to the chemical processes that preceded Work @ Home life on earth, will comb the data for vital clues about whether Titan is covered by rock, methane ice or an ocean of chemicals.

Judging from the photos, the scientists speculate that the moon's surface is covered Subscribe Now with drainage channels, canyons and rivulets. Contact Us Lebreton said they could see what appeared About Us to be a coastline and the bed of a river Gold $/oz 425.05 Advertising through which liquid, probably a mixture of JSE ALSI 12511.85 Readership methane and ethane had flowed. Top 40 11269.70 Online Advertising Financials 12854.63 Breakfast Club "It is clear that the surface was soft," he said. R/US 6.02 Booking Deadlines "The best image I can give is of a creme R/UK 11.29 Terms & Conditions brulee, with a crust on the surface and softer R/EURO 7.85 material underneath. We also know that, on impact, a little methane evaporated in contact with a hot tube of one of the instruments." The successful landing was greeted with whoops of joy in the control centre, but the jubilation was tinged with sadness.

"The very instant when your dream comes true, you know it is the end of a human adventure that you are missing already," the mission's operations chief, Claudio Solazzo, said with a tear in his eye. - Sapa-AFP

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