Parachuting to Titan

On January 14th, ESA's Huygens probe will descend into the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Huygens arrived at Saturn aboard the Cassini spacecraft in July of last year, and has been orbit the planet ever since. On Christmas day, Huygens separated from Cassini and set a course for Titan. What it finds will undoubtedly be something stranger than we had previously imagined. Titan is as large as some planets, and contains an atmosphere three times thicker than Earth's, filled with organic compounds. Being far from the Sun however, the moon is incredibly cold -- too cold for life to take hold? Huygens will be doing a lot of science on its long descent down to Titan. If it survives the landing, the probe will probably be alive only for minutes before the bitter cold drains it of energy and it cease operations. Read a summary at NASA.