Huygens' Titan descent telemetry, visualized

Jacob Elder — 1 minute to read — January 18, 2009

This video, built with data collected during the European Space Agency's Huygens probe on Jan. 14, 2005, shows the operation of the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer camera during its descent and after touchdown. The camera was funded by NASA.

The brief and glorious life of the Huygens lander, dropped from the Cassini probe into the atmosphere of Titan, is compressed from 4 hours to just a few minutes. A unique chime as if from a child’s xylophone accompanies each sensor reading. As Huygens’ last meters close, the final intrusion of poetry into science is utterly disarming.

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