Starship Asterisk*

[i]Titan by the numbers - Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech[/i]

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Ten years ago, an explorer from Earth parachuted into the haze of an alien moon toward an uncertain fate. After a gentle descent lasting more than two hours, it landed with a thud on a frigid floodplain, surrounded by icy cobblestones. With this feat, the Huygens probe accomplished humanity's first landing on a moon in the outer solar system. Huygens was safely on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

The hardy probe not only survived the descent and landing, but continued to transmit data for more than an hour on the frigid surface of Titan, until its batteries were drained.

Since that historic moment, scientists from around the world have pored over volumes of data about Titan, sent to Earth by Huygens -- a project of the European Space Agency -- and its mothership, NASA's Cassini spacecraft. In the past 10 years, data from the dynamic spacecraft duo have revealed many details of a surprisingly Earth-like world.

In addition to the technical wizardry needed to pull off this tour de force, international partnerships were critical to successfully delivering the two spacecraft to Saturn and Titan. ...