中文翻譯:
如果你能站在Titan上，你會看到什麼呢？這是一幅來自Titan的彩色照片，它展示了這個遙遠的風景，這是土星最大的衛星。這幅場景是由歐洲太空總署的Huygens探測器在2005年拍攝的，當時它花了2.5小時穿過濃厚的氮氣大氣，籠罩著甲烷的雲層。在地面上，昏暗的橙色光芒讓你看到地面上散落的石頭，它們可能由冰凍的水和碳氫化合物組成，溫度非常寒冷，大約-179度C。畫面中偏左的那塊較亮的岩石大約只有15厘米大，距離探測器85厘米。Huygens的著陸器認為它穿透了Titan表面的約15厘米，這裡的地面感覺像是濕沙或粘土。Huygens的電池在著陸後還能運行超過90分鐘，這段時間內它記錄了很多數據。Titan上奇特的化學環境可能和地球在生命進化之前是相似的。
原文:
If you could stand on Titan — what would you see? The featured color view from Titan gazes across an unfamiliar and distant landscape on Saturn’s largest moon. The scene was recorded by ESA’s Huygens probe in 2005 after a 2.5-hour descent through a thick atmosphere of nitrogen laced with methane. Bathed in an eerie orange light at ground level, rocks strewn about the scene could well be composed of water and hydrocarbons frozen solid at an inhospitable temperature of negative 179 degrees C. The large light-toned rock below and left of center is only about 15 centimeters across and lies 85 centimeters away. The saucer-shaped spacecraft is believed to have penetrated about 15 centimeters into a place on Titan’s surface that had the consistency of wet sand or clay. Huygen’s batteries enabled the probe to take and transmit data for more than 90 minutes after landing. Titan’s bizarre chemical environment may bear similarities to planet Earth’s before life evolved.
來源:NASA每日圖片
