Saturn > North Pole Hexagon imaged by Cassini

"An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with the Cassini mission."

"The hexagon is similar to Earth’s polar vortex, which has winds blowing in a circular pattern around the polar region. On Saturn, the vortex has a hexagonal rather than circular shape. The hexagon is nearly 25 000 kilometres across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it."

More at ESA.int

AKARI > Peeking on the life of stars > With Alberto Salama

AKARI, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission, launched a year and a month ago, and counting with the participation of several european partners, including ESA participation, has granted us new amazing results and images on the life of stars, from the nursery to retirement, and data about how distant galaxies and interstellar material are serving as auberges for black holes.

These results will be presented, this week, at the annual meeting of the National Astronomical Society of Japan.

Alberto Salama, ESA - ISO and AKARI Project Scientist, answered some spacEurope questions on this occasion.

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We are seing with AKARI, the unseen, things that escaped observations with other missions, is this true?

What we are seeing is information transmitted to us from the Universe via infrared radiation.

We cannot see (with visible radiation) star forming processes as these occur behind thick curtains of dust. Infrared radiation penetrates through these curtains.

In addition, we can get from each infrared colour or wavelength specific fingerprints of the material behind these curtains. After travelling through space, this radiations is however absorbed by our atmosphere. We therefore need space telescopes to detect infrared radiation.

AKARI maps the whole sky in the infrared 20 years after its predecessor IRAS in more detail. The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) from the European Space Agency (ESA) observed in detail objects detected by the IRAS survey.

It made between 1995 and 1998 some 30,000 observations of more than 6,000 objects in the Universe.

The Spitzer observatory from NASA, launched in 2003, is another observatory in the infrared to study objects in details.

AKARI is a surveyor but also offers pointed observation facilities and with its many filters and large field of view,complements Spitzer. So AKARI enriches our knowledge of the infrared face of the Universe.


The study of the nebula IC4954/4955 provided a look into the life of three generations of stars. Are they related?
Is there indeed a "family" bond between this stellarbodies?

Take a look at the images of the nebula IC4954/4955 (in the ESA press release). On the left hand side you see arc-like structures, these are formed by a young, massive star (not seen in the image) at the centre of the nebula sweeping the material outward by its strong radiation pressure. Astronomers believe that new stars are formed in such high-density regions.

The arcs are located at a distance of about one light year from the central star. The image to the right is taken at longer wavelengths - the arcs are seen also heated by the central star and appear blue.

Another image shows the surrounding region of the stellar nursery and is about 20 times broader than the previous figure.The brightest region in this figure is IC4954/4955. In addition a distinct hollow in the middle of the image is apparent.

The diameter of this hollow is about a hundred light years. Astronomers suspect that an even earlier, first generation star formed around several to ten million years ago, and that this object induced the star formation of the second generation including the IC4954/4955 region.


UGC 05101, an ultraluminous infrared galaxy , is at about 550 million light years in the constellation Ursa Major...How did AKARI revealed us the galaxy's cloud temperature?

UGC05101 is situated in the constellation Ursa Major, approximately 550 million light years away from the Earth. So-called ultraluminous infrared galaxy, UGC 05101 emits in the infrared alone is about one trillion times more energy than that of the Sun. However, the central region is covered by a thick interstellar medium and can only be observedin the infrared. Observations with AKARI have revealed evidence for active phenomena in the central part of this galaxy. In particular, we see fingerprints in its spectrum of water and carbon monoxide, atoms and ions (charged particles).The carbon monoxide feature is broad, and this indicates that the temperature in this central region must be of at least 500 degress centrigrates. It has been postulated that at the centre of UGC05101 sits a giant black hole, of mass more than a million times that of our Sun. In this case, the material around it would be expected to radiate enormous amounts of energy as it slowly tumbles into the black hole. It is suspected that the detected molecular gas is heated by radiation from near the black hole.

What answers are obtained regarding the appearance of galaxies in the Universe by making observations at the 15-micrometre wavelength?
And what can the observations on other wavelengths bring us on this same matter?

Galaxies in which active star formation is taking place emit most of their energy as infrared radiation from the interstellar material heated by the light from the young hot stars. The light observed from the distant galaxies, has long left the galaxies and is stretched (or "red-shifted") due to the expansion of the Universe. This is why it is observed at wavelengths longer than the original emitting wavelengths. Due to the redshift, observations with ESAs Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) revealed that the number of faint, distant galaxies increased drastically when observed at 15 micrometres. The original emitting wavelength was 7 micrometres, approximately 6 thousand million years ago, and has been redshifted to 15 micrometres during its journey across the Universe.This emission feature around 7 micrometres, due to the characteristic emission from organic materials in the interstellar medium, is stronger in regions of active star formation. Thus, the ISO observations of a very small area of the sky containing only 24 galaxies already showed that active star formation took place at this epoch in the history of the Universe. The area observed by AKARI is about three times wider than that of ISO. AKARI detected around 280 galaxies in this region, confirming the increase in the number of galaxies at 15 micrometres implied by the earlier ISO observations. Comparable numbers of even fainter galaxies have been discovered with AKARI, leading to the conclusion that the star formation activity was already intense even earlier than 6 thousand million years in the past. Similar deep surveys over the entire wavelength range (from 2 to 24 micrometres) are being carried out with AKARI. These data will provide a definitive description of the evolution of galaxies over the lifetime of the Universe.

The mission liquid Helium cryogen is expected to last untill September
That's not far...
Are there already any results that we may consider the mission's cherry on the cake?Is there any future pointed observations that you expect with more anticipation before the mission's end?

Infrared detectors function at very low temperature - otherwise we would see their own thermal emission. In order to cool the detectors system (including the telescope) we need liquid helium and a cryostat. This should be of relatively small dimension and weight to be launched into space. The total lifetime of the cryogen is as expected, 550 days, ending in September 2007 at least.

Other results and an overview of the mission can be consulted on the AKARI ESA User Support webpage.

The results presented are a just few of the about 5000 pointed observations being done in AKARI cryogenic lifetime.

Thanks to the working cooperation on this mission ESA has with Japan, European astronomers can use this space telescope for 10% of the available time to study in detail objects from our Solar System to the distant Universe.

This post was edited in March 27, 2007 > 13:45

Titan. Or How Mankind Unveils Worlds. > Q'n'A with Ralph Lorenz

We marveled ourselves when the Huygens dived into the unknown and landed on Titan’s surface, revealing the first ground views of an alien moon. Eyes get wide open each time Cassini performs a new flyby delivering dramatic views of this surprising, mindblogging world.
Like a curious child wanting to know what lies behind Titan’s stage, with hands opening the curtains before the show begins, the Cassini-Huygens mission represents our own eyes, our own desire to Know, to reveal, not only the scenary, but the whole play and its characters.
This infant, this Little Prince, not only formulating questions, but also helping to get answers, out of Earth’s boundaries, has many names, people that gave their time and dedication to achieve an out of this world goal, one of them is Ralph Lorenz.

This Scotsman, once a Young Graduate Trainee at ESA, reporting to Huygens Payload/AIV Manager, where he applied his engineering skills on the European probe’s payload instruments and system design, is responsible for the development of the science strategy for impact science and acoustic sounding of Titan's surface from the ESA Huygens probe.

He is one of those who designed and build a dream. One of those who, not only took us There, but, actually, helped us landing on Titan.

And his work did not end with Huygens’s success...

As Cassini work is far from end, and the Titan’s quest is in its beggining, Ralph Lorenz, active part in the Cassini PSG and still in the Huygens Science Working Team, dedicated to, along with Jonathan Lunine, to perform surface and climate evolution modelling of the Saturn’s moon. He also interpreted and analysed Hubble’s images from that far corner of our Solar System with Peter Smith, and developed surface maps and searched for cloud features to, as a cosmic investigator, get more and more clues about Titan’s enigmas.

Dr. Lorenz is now helping planning the science strategy and developed observation planning software for Cassini’s radar mapping of Titan's surface.

Besides all this he is also author of an extense bibliography from which Lifting Titan's Veil with Jacqueline Mitton or Planetary Landers and Atmospheric Entry Probes with Ball, Garry, and Kerzhanovich, are among others, very good examples.

You might think where on Earth does Dr. Lorenz get all the time...maybe the answer lies on Titan itself...

Facing all this it was a great previlege for spacEurope to see Dr. Lorenz sparing some of its rare free time to invite us to a tour taking us from the past into the future of Titan exploration, having the present as a fantastic background.

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Now, that two years have passed since the Huygens landing, how do you feel about those days of 2005?

I feel immensely proud to have been part of the project, from beginning to end. To have designed and built a little part of Huygens as a student in the 1990s, and then to see it work a billion miles away 12 years later, and analyze the data to learn about a completely new world was just an incredible opportunity. The dedicated and talented group of people from many different countries I got to work with made it an awesome experience I’ll remember forever. I talk in more depth about my experiences throughout the project in my book Lifting Titan’s Veil (Cambridge, 2002) and its sequel Titan Unveiled which will be published at the end of this year by Princeton.


What were, in your oppinion, besides the astounding technical success of landing a man made object on an unknown moon, Huygens major achievements?

It was a major technical achievement for Europe, of course, and set the stage for developments since like Beagle and Exomars. In terms of understanding Titan, the images of the surface showing the unmistakeable evidence of fluvial activity, and the measurements of the gas composition that help us understand Titan’s formation are probably the principal scientific results. We should not forget also that Huygens was designed with relatively little information about the Titan environment (winds, gas composition etc.) so even many of the ‘simpler’ Huygens results like windspeeds are going to be very helpful in designing future missions.


Huygens accomplished its objectives, now Cassini is revealing, little by little, a whole new world, what can we expect from the mission untill its end? The moon's whole mapping? And on the scientific field? What sort of new data can we expect that will help us understanding better Titan?

Cassini may be able to make radar map of about a third of the surface at km-resolution with its extended mission through 2010, but the high resolution multispectral coverage in the near-infrared will be much less – just some selected targets. But we have another 17 flybys to go in the nominal mission, and another 26 after that in the extended mission, so there is still a lot of good science to come. Seeing how Titan’s atmospheric circulation (and the clouds and rain in particular) change as we get to the northern spring equinox in 2009 will be very exciting.


Regarding latest announcements of lakes and now seas, is it already possible to have a global sense to what are we seing?

What is really interesting is the diversity of Titan – that the low latitudes (a mix of mountainous terrain and vast fields of sand dunes) are very distinctive from the polar regions, which have lakes and seas. The landscape is of course influenced by the atmosphere – perhaps more profoundly than we expected. It makes it obvious that Titan has to be understood as a complex system – no part of it is in isolation – everything affects everything else.


I have to make this one, what would our eyes see if we were standing at the shore of one of those lakes? Would we see any movement? Waves? In what sort of ground would we be stepping on?

That’s like asking ‘What is it like to stand on the surface of the Earth’. I am sure the answer depends on exactly where you happen to be.

For lakes/seas generally there are probably changes on several timescales. First, at least small waves (propagating in slow motion in Titan’s low gravity) should be formed, even by Titan’s gentle winds. In fact I did some wind tunnel experiments a few years ago with a tray of kerosene to see how wave generation by wind in hydrocarbons might be different from waves in water – the thicker atmosphere on Titan also makes wave generation easier. Second, if you can wait a couple of weeks, you might see the sea level go up and down by a meter or so (depending on where the sea is and how big) due to Saturn’s gravity. It may be there are seasonal changes in lake level due to rainfall and evaporation as well – if so there may be overturn (as seen in some lakes on Earth), stirring up of sediment, and so on.

The ground at the edge of lakes might be a lot like the Huygens landing site – ‘wet sand’ (well, ice or organic sand made wet with liquid ethane and methane!) but probably without the rounded cobbles and boulders – the Huygens site was more like a river bed showing evidence of transport and removal of material, whereas the lakes are more depositional. But some of the radar images of the lakes show some steep slopes at the edge of some lakes, so there might also be cliffs.


Before this mission, our idea of Titan was quite different, we know now that even dunes exist there...
What are the major surprises once hidden behind the veil and now revealed?

The diversity of Titan’s surface, and the menagerie of different clouds types and so on really is remarkable, and probably surprising even to me (although with a little thought the surface diversity maybe not a complete surprise – I suggested in Lifting Titan’s Veil that Titan might be a wide world too, with areas like many different areas on Earth…) The vast sand seas of dunes were a genuine surprise, though.

I expected to see more impact craters – the fact that other processes have obliterated these is very interesting. The balance of liquid and solid organic material on the surface has also been a surprise – made manifest in the sand seas.


One of the questions arousing is if the lakes are filled or not, in this paper, it is pointed out that the backscatter values are not untypical for dry, flat areas on Earth" and "consistent with asphalt surfaces".
There is also referred that this may not be a proper analogy to Titan, so...if the lakes dried out what can we be looking at?

The lakes we found near the poles are much, much darker than either the dunes or the dark spots seen in the earliest radar observations further south (to which the paper refers). In as much as asphalt is an organic solid, it may not be too bad an analog after all for a dried lake bed on Titan.


Seasonal changes, remarkable differences from one pole to the other.
Are we facing a planetary body as dynamic as Earth itself?

This is a very interesting question. In an energetic sense, no – there is much less sunlight and geothermal heat on Titan to drive meteorological and geological processes than there is on Earth. But interestingly, Titan is made of much more volatile materials – ice rather than rock, methane rather than water, and these materials need less energy to move around or be evaporated or melted or whatever. And so this compensates for the lower energy – thus in a landscape evolution sense, Titan is indeed very dynamic.

Another aspect is the weather. There is only enough sunlight to drive about 1cm per earth year of methane rainfall on average on Titan (compared with about 1m of water rain on Earth per year.) But on Titan, with its thicker atmosphere that can hold a lot of moisture, rainstorms may be very rare (as are Titan’s clouds, compared with Earth’s) but very violent. And so even though the average rainfall is small, we still see a landscape shaped by rain and rivers.

It is clear we can learn a lot about the processes that shape the Earth by studying how they are taken to extremes on Titan. Titan is a great laboratory – for geophysics and meteorology as well as organic chemistry.


Athena Coustenis, on a previous post talked about a project being developed to be presented by the end of June, and which goal is to return us to Titan in 2020-2025.
I would like to ask you if you are envolved in this project in particular or in another one with the same goals?

ESA is soliciting ideas for future mission as part of its Cosmic Visions programme. I have worked on several Titan mission studies in the past, and Athena has been a dear colleague of mine for over a decade and a half, so of course I am contributing some thoughts to this effort, at least informally.


Balloons, surface probes...What do you think it would be the most valuable approach to earn the more knowledge as possible in a single mission from Titan? Are you working on the development of new technology regarding this particular approaches?

There is presently a study underway to develop a mission concept for NASA (separate from the ESA Cosmic Visions effort above) which I am involved in as co-chair of the Science Definition Team and Study Scientist. It is obvious that landers, balloons and orbiters all address different aspects of the Titan system – for example, the material that makes the dunes probably starts its formation process up at 1000km altitude where Cassini has already found large molecules, perhaps to be brought down through the polar stratosphere where Cassini sees the strange winter polar hood and ethane clouds, and then lakes on the surface where maybe it dries up to form sand. So to understand the system as a whole, we may need all of these platforms together.


Let us dream a little, what future do you foresee for the exploration of Titan?

Titan is a very rich scientific target – lots of complex organic chemistry, a diverse Earth-like landscape and earth-like weather – these in addition to all the icy satellite geophysics it shares with other bodies like Europa. It is also very easy (comparatively) to explore –no hazardous radiation, and the thick atmosphere makes it easy to deliver exciting capabilities there – aerocapture for orbiters, easy soft-landing by parachute, and of course things like balloons or aeroplanes. These technological factors as well as the obvious scientific and public appeal make it, I think, inevitable that we will return to Titan soon.

Smile Monsieur Verne! Your ATV Is Ready to Fly!

"Jules Verne, the first of five Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATV), stands on the brink of flight. Its hardware is 100 percent assembled and ready to fly. The inaugural mission, set for the second half of 2007, will follow an extensive three-year test campaign."

"Now that all the numerous tests and campaign challenges are nearing completion, Jules Verne should be ready for shipment to the launch site in summer 2007. The transportation of ATV and its 400 tonnes of ground support equipment from ESA's test centre in the Netherlands to Kourou, French Guiana, will take two weeks by sea on board the Ariane 5 transportation ship, Toucan."

"ESA management is in discussion with its International Partners to ensure that Jules Verne will be able to fly at the earliest feasible and safe opportunity, thereby demonstrating that Europe has the ability to provide the logistics capability. It is also a way for Europe to pay its share in ISS running costs by spending money within the European industry rather than by cash transfers to its International Partners."

More at ESA.int

Image Credits: ESA-D.Ducros

Hinode And The Sun As We Have Never Seen It + Q'n'A with Pål Brekke

"Hinode, the newest solar observatory on the space scene, has obtained never-before-seen images showing that the sun's magnetic field is much more turbulent and dynamic than previously known. Hinode, Japanese for 'sunrise', was launched on 23 September 2006 to study the sun's magnetic field and how its explosive energy propagates through the different layers of the solar atmosphere."

More at ESA.int

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On this occasion spacEurope saw some of its questions answered by Pål Brekke, Senior Advisor at the Norwegian Space Centre and also Norway's participation programme manager.

Dr. Brekke, I believe you must be quite satisfied with the sharpeness and quality images provided by Hinode...

Yes, it really shows that the instrument teams have done a great job designing and building them.

It was said that the Sun's magnetic field is much more turbulent and dynamic than we we were aware of.Was this a complete surprise? Wasn't there not even a slight suspicious?

You are right. I will say that it was with the launch of SOHO that we really got to see the dynamic aspect of the solar atmosphere.
And early on in the SOHO mission we noticed that we did not resolve all the dynamics due to lower time resolution compared to Hinode.

What are your specific responsabilities as Senior Advisor within the Hinode mission?And what does this participation mean to the Norwegian Space Center?

Actually, I am not a senior advisor for Hinode. [OK, my mistake...]
I am the programme manager for the Norwegian participation in the mission. Norway is providing data downlink at our Svalbard station - the only satellite station that can all of the 15 orbits each day of Hinode.
In addition we built the European Data center in Oslo to distribute the scientific data. All this was done under a contract with ESA.
Our (NSC) involvement in Hinode, in particular the Data Center means that Norwegian scientists will be very close to the data stream and have better access to the data than others. This makes it attractive for new students to get involved.
So it will be a nice boost for our scientific groups.

It is referred in the latest news that we are closer to understand space storms...How do they evolve in the interplanetary space?

I do not think Hinode can answer how they evolve in Space.
It can give many answers to how and why things "explodes/erupts". The mechanisms. And maybe we in the future can predict such eruptions. The NASA mission Stereo is designed to studye how solar storms evolve on their way towards the Earth.

This is a mission where everyone seems to make part of. How do you see such a wide cooperation between so different agencies?

Its very positive, and also the only way to go.
The reason is that very often single agencies do not have money to build large complex mission alone, so international collaboration is much more common.And it brings together engineers and scientists from many different countries...which is very positive.

ESA+EU+Roscosmos

"Europe and Russia are strengthening their cooperation in space. The Head of the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (Roscosmos), Anatoly Perminov, ESA Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain, and European Commission Director General Heinz Zourek met today at Roscosmos in Moscow within the framework of the Tripartite Space Dialogue between the European Commission, European Space Agency and Roscosmos."

"This Tripartite Space Dialogue was set up at the St Petersburg Summit in May 2003, when the EU and Russia decided to create four ‘common spaces’ in the framework of the EU/Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement: common economic space; freedom, security and justice; cooperation in the field of external security; as well as research and education. The agreement was subsequently signed at the Moscow summit in May 2005. Within the Common Economic Space, cooperation in space was identified as a priority sector."

More at ESA.int

OSIRIS observes 2867-Steins

"During the very first observations of Rosetta’s flyby target 2867-Steins in March 2006 the onboard camera OSIRIS obtained the most accurate ‘light curve’ of this asteroid so far. OSIRIS observed Steins from a distance of 159 million kilometres and, from there, it obtained images and important clues about its characteristics."

Click here to watch animation.

More at ESA.int

Winner of the SUCCESS Contest: Haakon Lindekleiv

"ESA's SUCCESS student contest drew to a close last week with an award ceremony at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), in Cologne, Germany."

"To enter the SUCCESS contest European university students were challenged to think of original ideas for an experiment to fly on the International Space Station (ISS). Over 80 entries were received from all over Europe, with proposals covering a wide variety of fields, ranging from the classical life and physical sciences, to interior design and advanced robotics."

"A scientific jury selected three prize winners, with the first prize going to an investigation into cosmic radiation proposed by Norwegian student Haakon Lindekleiv."

"Lindekleiv's prize is to spend one year working at ESA's research and technology centre, ESTEC, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, where he will prepare his experiment for flight on the ISS."

More at ESA.int

Image Credit: ESA/DLR

SN1987A and an Outshining Anniversary

Dr. Frank Haberl, XMM-Newton's EPIC Principal Investigator, take us closer to the observations made by the spacecraft of the stellar remnant of the supernova SN1987A, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Almost 20 years after its discovery on 23 February 1987, the supernova is outshining all other X-ray sources in its immediate neighbourhood and has been on a continuously brightening since the first detection in X-rays by ROSAT in 1992.

It is now ten times brighter as compared to the first-light observations of XMM-Newton in January 2000.

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Dr. Haberl, what is happening to provoke the increasement in brightness?

Optical images (which are sharper than X-ray images) of SN1987A have revealed the existence of bright rings around the exploded star. They were formed before the explosion during the development of the progenitor star: from a stellar wind or other kind of mass ejection, the details are not yet understood.The X-ray emission we see now originates from the shock wave crossing the inner ring heating the ring matter.

The brightness was slowly increasing as long as the shock wave was inside the inner ring, heating matter of lower density. When the shock wave entered the denser matter in the ring the increase in brighness became faster.


Is it possible to predicts its future under the observation of its brightening "progression"? SN1987A will keep on brightning untill when and what will happen next and in what timescale?

As soon as the shock wave passes the innermost (densest) parts of the ring, the increase of the brightness will become slower again (this is in fact already indicated by the last XMM-Newton observation as the detailed quantitative analysis shows). How it further develops, depends on the exact distribution of matter in the ring. At some point it will reach constant (for yearly time scales) level as is the case of typical supernova remnants. On time scales of ten-thousands of years the remnant will then cool and fade away.


Is SN1987A a unique known case with this caractheristiques at the range of study?

It is unique because nearby (in our Milky Way or in the Magellanic Clouds) supernova events are rare. It is the first supernova since the invention of the telescope that occured close enough to be investigated in such detail. More distant supernovae can not be spatially resolved to see features like rings. It is therefore unknown if the rings are a special feature of SN1987A and the fact that the progenitor was a blue supergiant star.

It was referred that a central object like a neutron star could be present. What would be the implications? Could SN1987A originates a blackhole?

The detection of neutrinos at the time of the explosion strongly suggests the existence of a neutron star. It could only have turned into a black hole if a significant amount of the ejected matter fell back onto the neutron star. A neutron star might become visible in X-rays at some point when the remnant has expanded sufficiently and a point source can be detected in X-ray images or if a periodic modulation is detected in the X-ray flux (caused by the neutron rotation).

Will XMM-Newton keep on observing it? Or will we have to wait another 20 years for an update?...

I have another observation approved for the next observing round, hopefully about one year after the last observation.

More about XMM-NEWTON at ESA.int

Follow the Oil! > PAWG and the Search for Life on Mars

On the 6th Workshop of the European Astrobiology Network Association that took place in Lyon it was presented a topic marking the difference by not trying to “Follow the Water"...

"Search for oil reservoirs on Mars" was the result of a deep study on the history of Mars, focused on the search for oil on the Red Planet, having into account that oil might be a reserve of organic material for potential life forms.
The topic was presented by the Portuguese Astrobiology Working Group. PAWG is currently studing the 'Mars Exobiological Potential' as part of the MAGIC project (Mars Atmospherical Geophysical and ExobIological Characterisation), financed by the FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) and with the Recognised Cooperating Laboratory status for the Mars Express mission. The group, coordinated by Prof. Maria Eugénia Webb, the Portuguese representative at the European Astrobiology Network Association.

PAWG, via the FCT Astrobiology Working Group, is also responsible for the development of the Extreme Database project, dedicated to extremophile organisms.

It was on the behalf of the PAWG that Susana Direito, from the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, kindly answered some spacEurope questions.

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Your research derives from a premise inverse to the one adopted on Earth...it deals with searching oil to find life and no to dizimate it...

Yes, effectively. It is my oppinion that we must invest more and more on alternatives to the use of oil as fuel.
The search for oil on Mars must be done, exclusively, on a astrobiological and scientific point of view.


What might the consequences be, for a future exploration of Mars, if studies provide proofs of the existence of oil reservoirs?

If such happens then the key word will be “caution”. As in other space missions “caution is fundamental, because there will always be a contamination problem.
Every mission being planned will need to be ver well thought.


Any promising results so far? Are there specific locations as serious candidates?

It is a very promising hypothesis because a deep study of the planet was undertaken.
The candidate locations are the areas where we can find dark streaks and dark features.
The choice of one of them as a target for a potential mission depends on the technical means available and the terrain caractheristiques.


You have made reference to the use of MOC and MGS images in your study, could you be more specific and tell us which?

One example is the following image:

(Detail from a MOC narrow-angle image: M15-01460; credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems.)


The dark features you made reference to are not comparable to dune fields such as El Dorado...how is the distinction made?

The dark slope streaks to which I make reference are as the one in the image example, differencing itself from the surrounding terrain due to its darker tone and appearing like liquid flows.


Could you resume how does oil acts on ice and what are the results, in comparative terms, on Mars?

The performed study was on a aspect/configuration level, this means that it was compared the aspect and configuration of terrestrial oil on ice with some images obtained on the martian south pole.


What are the instruments onboard Mars Express useful for your project?

The Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) onboard Mars Express was very useful, because it was through it that Formisano ad its team detected methane on the martian atmosphere.
The detection of this hydrocarbon is of great importance because on our planet, beyond the capability of metanogenic extremophiles to produce it it can be also related with the production of hydrocarbonates on sedimentary basins, because methane is often generated and stowed in sedimentary rocks associated to gas and oil deposits.


I don’t know if you have read the small spacEurope Q’n’A with Giovanni Picardi where he alludes to the possibility of present liquid water extensions detection.
Were you aware of this and which are the direct implications to your work?

Yes, I was already aware of that.
The existence of liquid water only comes in support of our hypothesis.
Water in liquid state is one of the prerequisits for the existence of life.


What distinguishes the dark streaks you mention from dust devils trails or from the gullies where recently alterations attributed to water were detected?

The dark slope streaks observed are different from the gullies or dust devils trails.
They tend to look like liquid flows and present a darker colour than its surroundings.
From the study we have done on Mars history and processes, we propose that this dark streaks might be oil seeps or mixtures of water and oil emerging to the surface.
We think that this seeps are not just water because liquid water wouldn’t persist such an amount of time on the martian surface, this would freeze due to the low temperatures or it would evaporate immediately as consequence of the low atmospheric pressure.
What happens is that this dark streaks stay for a longer period of time, persisting for many years, getting lighter with the passage of time.
We explain this event with the fact of oil, being a viscuous and sticky substance, easily attracts lighter color dust.


Equator, South Pole...
There is not a specific region, can Mars be an immense oil reservoir?
Would a discovery of that nature point out to a gigantic mausoleum of a planet thriving with life in the past?

Oly further investigations will be able to answer that question.
But I point to the fact that martian oil might had an abiogenic origin.


As astrobiologist you had to study also geology, in particular ancient tectonic processes that took place on Mars. How is it like to deal with that interdisciplinarity?...

I think that it was easy to deal with and, as with any researcher or student moved by curiosity, everything becomes more easy and interesting.


The MAGIC project envolves several different components.
In which manner do the other parts help in your particular study?

As we use to say, the parts make the whole. Interdisciplinarity is really important.


Could you explain me what are the advantages for the MAGIC project of having the RCL status?

I believe that the fact of being attributed by ESA, an instituion with such a high prestige speaks for itself.
Its the first time that Portuguese institutions are envolved in a project of this nature with the European Space Agency and it is also the first time we have the RCL status in Portugal.


You are also active part of the Extreme Database project.
What is the objective? Know where to look for life on Mars? Possible use on an eventual future Terraforming process?

The objective is to make available the more information as possible about this extraordinary microorganisms in order to anyone interested ad with the more distinct objectives (Terraforming, search for life on Mars, etc) can obtain informaion on a quick way, having access to the bibliographic references.


Who consults the database?

Astrobiologists, biologists and whom might be interested in the subject.


From all the organisms present there might there be the possiblity of some being, in fact, martians?

The panspermia possiblity can not be ruled out, it wouldn’t be certainly impossible that a martian meteorite could have transported life to Earth.


There is a lot of studies about the Rio Tinto, are organisms like those, in reality, the most serious candidates to be our red planet neighbours?
Do you discard the possiblity of more developed organisms?

I believe that, actually, if Mars sustains forms of life this will surely be microscopic or, at least, not visible in the images we have actually available from Mars.
The extremophiles are good candidates.


As astrobiologist how are your optimism levels regarding finding life beyond Earth, taking into account the latest missions?

My optimism levels are high. For example, the discovery of oil on Mars would be a good sign.


In a time that we ear so much about Titan, Enceladus, Europa, on the hypothesis of comets being carriers of life...are you envolved in other projects that dedicate to other bodies besides Mars? What are you developing in terms of future work?

At the moment the PAWG is envolved only in this project, but we would be very pleased to participate in other projects or cooperations with different institutions if proposals are presented to us.


If you could decide what should the next mission target be...where would you send it and with which goals?

I would send a mission to Mars to continue a focused search to the sites were the probability of existing life is higher such as the Martian subsurface. And to investigate if this seeps are really oil and its origin, I mean, if it is biogenic or abiogenic.

'A night in space: meet the European astronauts'

"On 26 March, as part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaties, an event with ESA's astronauts will take place at the University of Rome Sapienza, with the participation of Italian Research Minister Fabio Mussi. The event, dubbed 'A night in space: meet the European astronauts', is being organised jointly by the European Commission Representation in Italy, the French Embassy in Italy, the European Space Agency, the University of Rome Sapienza and the Italian Space Agency."

More at ESA.int

Onward to Mercury! Q'nA with Jan van Casteren, ESA BepiColombo Project Manager

BepiColombo, an ESA mission, which for the first time counts with Japanese cooperation and consisting of two separate spacecraft, ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), and ISAS/JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), that will orbit the planet leaving Earth’s ground towards Mercury in 2013 on journey lasting approximately 6 years, had its definite “GO!” by the European Space Agency Science Programme Committee on the 23rd of February.

Its goal is to explore the planet closest to the Sun, a location that represents a major challenge in both technical and scientific fields.
Each of the spacecraft have clearly defined objectives, MPO will dedicate to the study the surface and internal composition of the planet, and the MMO will study it’s magnetosphere.
Obtaining more knowledge about Mercury will, undoubtfuly lead to a better understanding of the formation of Solar System itself.

When Bepi-Colombo arrives, in August 2019, it will return data that will help us knowing not only about the targeted planet but also about the processes envolved in the formation of inner planets in general, and that includes our own Mother Earth.
Facing temperatures temperatures as high as 350 °C, the mission will collect information during its 1 year nominal mission from September 2019 until September 2020, with a possible 1-year extension to September 2021.

Jan van Casteren, ESA BepiColombo Project Manager, gives us some clews about the mission’s concept and its ambitious goals.

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BepiColombo comprises two orbiters.
Why isn't possible to accomplish the objectives with a single one?
In which diferes their orbits?

BepiColombo wants to do a comprehensive exploration of Mercury, that is on one hand a global mapping of the planet surface and study of its interior and on the other hand the study of Mercury's magnetosphere. A two spacecraft approach, with different orbits, provides an excellent means to satisfy these mission objectives. The Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) is optimised for the remote sensing and is nadir pointing in a low orbit of 400 km x 1500 km to provide high resolution observations. The Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is optimised for the study of the magnetosphere in an orbit of 400 km x 12000km. Both orbits are polar orbits, allowing full coverage also at the polar regions.


What will be the trajectory towards Mercury?
Similar to the one followed by the Messenger mission?
Regarding this one what are the differences and advantages of the BepiColombo mission?

The journey from Earth to Mercury will be a first. The launch with Soyuz Fregat from CSG Kourou is into geostationairy transfer orbit. Using chemical propulsion, the Mercury Composite Spacecraft will be boosted to the phasing orbit where it will meet the Moon to give it a slingshot into its interplanetary trajectory. The spacecraft must brake against the Sun's gravity, which increases with proximity to the Sun, rather than accelerate away from it, as is the case with journeys to the outer Solar System. BepiColombo will accomplish this by making clever use of the gravity of the Moon, Venus and Mercury itself and by using solar electric propulsion (SEP).

This innovative combination of low thrust space propulsion and gravity assist has been demonstrated by ESA's technology mission, SMART-1. The electric propulsion mission allows the selection of the medium size launch vehicle. The same mission based on chemical propulsion, delivering the 500 kg MPO and the 250 kg MMO into their Mercury orbits, would have demanded an Ariane 5 launch vehicle.

When approaching Mercury after 6 years, the spacecraft will use the planet's gravity plus a conventional rocket engine to insert itself into a polar orbit. We employ a special Weak Stability Boundary Capturing technique. This gives flexibility and is robust against failures when using the more traditional “big kick” approach (single burn capture). The MMO will be released into its operational orbit, then the Sunshield and the MMO interface structure will be separated while the chemical propulsion system will bring the MPO to its lower orbit. Scientific observations from orbit will continue for one Earth year. In Mercury orbit, the MPO spacecraft will be nadir pointing continuously in order to maximise its science observations.

This poses new technological challenges. The high resolution global mapping and the returning of 1550 Gbits of data within one year requires nadir pointing at low altitude. This necessitates high temperature technology solutions for all external items, e.g. high gain antenna, solar array, mechanisms, multilayer insulation, coatings and radiator. At that solar distance, the sun emits in excess of14000 kW/m2, i.e. 10 times as much as at Earth distance. It also requires a radiator that is capable of radiating excessive heat into space, while at the same time being relatively insensitive to the Mercury infra-red emission,that is 5000 kW/m2. A very large velocity increment is needed to go to Mercury (8 km/s).

By comparison, the Rosetta mission requires 2 km/s to meet the comet and this spacecraft goes all the way up to Jupiter's distance from the Sun. In order to do this efficiently, the solar electric propulsion has been choosen, as explained above.

In terms of propulsion it will be used a similar concept to the one used by SMART-1, this includes ion engines. Could you be more specific on how will the mission arrive and execute its tasks under this point of view?

The SMART-1 mission has used ion engines with a specific impulse of about 1500 s. Due to the very large velocity increment required for BepiColombo, a superior performance is demanded, namely 4600 s. This performance can only be achieved with gridded ion engines, for which there are two candidate manufacturers in Europe: EADS Astrium (D) and QinetiQ (UK).

The competitive selection will take place in the course of this year. The ion engines will provide thrust levels of 70 mN to 150 mN, depending on the mission phase for very long durations, several years. In doing so, the composite spacecraft will be on a spiral trajectory around the Sun, with ever smaller radius, until it reaches Mercury.


In what consists the Weak Stability Boundary Capturing technique that will be used for the first time?

Mercury will be approached such that the composite spacecraft will just arrive within its gravitacional influence sphere in a highly eccentric orbit that has an apogee of approximately 100,000 km.

That orbit is so large that it is not stable, however, without any thrust activity, the composite spacecraft will circle Mercury for 5 orbits. If no orbit correction would be made, the spacecraft would fly away from Mercury and continue orbiting the Sun.

The 5 orbits gives the flight operators ample time and opportunity to gradually lower the orbit where the composite spacecraft is firmly captured by the gravity field. This method is robust to any anomaly that might occur during that mission phase, as time is available to resolve the problems.

"Most of ESA's previous interplanetary missions have been to relatively cold parts of the Solar System. BepiColombo will be the Agency's first experience of sending a planetary probe to very 'hot' regions."
What are the major challenges for an innovative mission like this one?

Qualification temperatures, depending on the item, go up to temperatures between 250 and 350 deg C. Dedicated technology development activities were started a few years ago to prepare for the mission.


BepiColombo is also ESA's first mission in cooperation with Japan.
How are the parts dealing?
JAXA is the responsible for MMO but the Japanese instruments counted also with European contributions...
In which percentage is ESA investing on the mission?

With two spacecraft, BepiColombo is a large and costly mission - it is one of the 'cornerstones' in ESA's long-term science programme. The cost to ESA is 665 Meuro. ESA's responsability is to provide the overall mission design, the MPO spacecraft, the electrical and chemical propulsion module, the integration and test, the launch, the cruise operations and the MPO operations at Mercury. The mission is implemented in collaboration with JAXA, who will provide the MMO and its operations at Mercury.

The MPO will carry 12 sophisticated scientific instruments, which are provided by Principal Investigators under national funding (11 from ESA member states, 1 from Russia). One of the 5 scientific instruments on the MMO will be European, again nationally funded and the other 4 are provided by JAXA, with national European contribution.


Besides scientific results what benefits might a mission like this one bring to common citizens? What should be BepiColombo flag near European taxpayers?

BepiColombo will give European scientists a leading edge in planetary science and with its high technology spacecraft, may inspire a "can do" attitude in Europe. Mercury still is the least known planet in the inner solar system and its precise characterization is long overdue.

Being the planet closest to the sun it represents the inner end-member of the four terrestrial planets. As such it plays a fundamental role in constraining and testing the competing theories explaining dynamical and compositional aspects of the formation and evolution of the whole group. Knowledge of Mercury’s surface composition will provide a key test of competing models for the formation and evolution of Mercury and with that of all the terrestrial planets.

Mercury’s interior structure will be investigated by the radio science experiment in combination with the laser altimeter and the high-resolution camera. Together these instruments will provide an accurate determination of the global gravity field and the rotational state of the planet as well as the amplitude of the physical libration. These parameters allow constraining its internal structure. Mercury can be seen as one end-member of our planetary system. Thus, understanding Mercury’s evolution will for sure contribute to a better understanding about solar system formation.

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Here you can consult, kindly provided by Jan van Casteren, a mission timetable untill its launch.

More at ESA.int
and JAXA

Image credit: NASA

Water on Mars south pole's sufficient to cover the entire Planet

"The amount of water trapped in frozen layers over Mars' south polar region is equivalent to a liquid layer about 11 metres deep covering the planet. This new estimate comes from mapping the thickness of the dusty ice by the Mars Express radar instrument that has made more than 300 virtual slices through layered deposits covering the pole. The radar sees through icy layers to the lower boundary, which in places is as deep as 3.7 kilometres below the surface."

"Our radar is doing its job extremely well," said Prof. Giovanni Picardi of the University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Principal Investigator for the instrument. "MARSIS is showing to be a very powerful tool to probe underneath the Martian surface, and it's showing how our team’s goals – such as probing the polar layered deposits - are being successfully achieved," he continued. "Not only MARSIS is providing us with the first ever views of Mars’ subsurface at those depths, but the details we are seeing are truly amazing. We are expecting even greater results when we will have concluded an on-going, sophisticated fine-tuning of our data processing methods. These should enable us to understand even better the surface and subsurface composition."

More at ESA.int

Mission Specialist: Paolo Nespoli

"Later this year, ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli will serve as Mission Specialist on the STS-120 mission to the International Space Station. Together with the rest of the Shuttle crew, Nespoli is training intensively ahead of this complex ISS assembly mission."

"Nespoli's mission, which will be jointly managed by ESA and ASI, will be his first visit to space. A member of the European Astronaut Corps since 1998, he naturally looks forward to finally fulfilling a dream. "I will reach a goal I have been working on for many many years, so I am looking forward to experiencing this personally," says Nespoli."

More at ESA.int

Sea of Titan Unshrouded

"Instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft, part of the joint NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons, have found evidence for seas, likely filled with liquid methane or ethane, in the high northern latitudes of Saturn's moon Titan."

"While there is no definitive proof yet that these seas contain liquid, their shape, their dark appearance in radar that indicates smoothness, and their other properties point to the presence of liquids. The liquids are probably a combination of methane and ethane, given the conditions on Titan and the abundance of methane and ethane gases and clouds in Titan's atmosphere."

"This image (click to enlarge) is the extract of a larger panoramic view of Titan obtained by Cassini's radar instrument during a near-polar flyby on 22 February 2007, and shows the largest lakes observed by Cassini’s radar to date.
The largest lake – at least 100 000 square kilometers - covers a greater fraction of Titan (0.12 percent of its surface) than the largest terrestrial inland sea, the Black Sea (0.085 percent of the Earth’s surface)."

Credits: NASA/JPL

More at ESA.int

and JPL.NASA.gov

More on Mars > MARSIS Update with Giovanni Picardi

MARSIS, a multi-frequency Synthetic Radar Altimeter with around penetration capabilities, one of the seven instruments onboard Mars Express has, a primary scientific objectives, the mapping of distribution of water, both liquid and solid, in the upper portion of the crust of Mars.
The instrument is also able to perform geologic probing of Mars subsurface and to characterize it by using large scale altimetry.
Mars ionosphere sounding is another secondary scientific goal by globally measuring the ionosphere electron density and investigating sun and the solar wind on the electron density.
Since the mission start, MARSIS has retrieved precious information, giving us a new insight of Mars, revealing a new look towards the past of the Red Planet, finding evidence for large aquifers on early Mars or discovering a new layer in Martian ionosphere just to use two examples.

While its tantalizing data keep on being acquired, Giovanni Picardi, MARSIS Principal Investigator, from the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, in spite of the workload, shared some of its time to answer some questions.

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Dr. Picardi, what activities is, currently, MARSIS performing?

MARSIS is currently taking data for subsurface sounding as well for ionosphere sounding.


According to the latest buried crater findings might the finding of bodies of water become harder to achieve in the North hemisphere?

Presently INFOCOM is working on MARSIS data inversion process to determine the dielectric constant of the subsurface detected interface. The first results have been obtained on flat surface to avoid the clutter presence as well the surface and subsurface behaviour that can jeopardize the accuracy on the estimated dielectric constant. In the north hemisphere few areas exhibit suitable characteristics for the data inversion.


Is it possible to say that the North was similar to the South in the past? More heavily cratered? Is there a way to know if this might of cyclical nature?
Will the Southern Hemisphere become smoother?

This is a question whose answer should be stated by the geologist expertises. By the radar point of view the south pole surface is smoother than north pole area.


Regarding latest fresh gullies finding by NASA's MGS did MARSIS performed localized observations? Any results so far?

Not yet MARSIS data have been inverted on these areas.

Is it possible for MARSIS to "see" what lies beneath Elysium's frozen ocean or does the thickness of this one surpasses the capabilities of the instrument?

There is not any technical reason for limiting the MARSIS capabilities excluding the depth of the interface and its dielectric constant. Stated in other words depends from the first layer attenuation and from the reflectivity of the subsurface.


Elysium was a major finding, were there large concentrations of water founded?

The inversion has not be yet performed on this area.


And liquid water? Do we have answers to where it might be?

MARSIS data inversion on the south pole has found compatibility with water dielectric constant. According to the geologist opinion in many areas at medium latitude could be possible to find subsurface water traces.


One of the objectives is to provide a 3D topographic map of the poles, was this already performed? What might we earn from it?

Actually has not yet been performed.


And about solar wind interaction. Are there already answers?

The solar wind interacts with Mars ionosphere and MARSIS is able to recover the distortion due to the ionosphere interaction with the electromagnetic pulses by contrast technique.


And on one of the parameters for the ionospheric sounding data processing, temperatures, any conclusions so far?

By the radar point of view the ionosphere parameters have been estimated by the surface signal and compared with the active ionosphere sounding data.


What will MARSIS provide us in the current year?

More wide area investigation in order to determine the subsurface dielectric constant to help the geologist on the interpretation of the Mars geological history.

More on Mars Express at ESA.int

Rosetta 12.03.07 > OSIRIS Update

Following the round-up for the instruments onboard Rosetta used during the recent Mars swing-by, Dr. Horst Uwe Keller, OSIRIS Principal Investigator from the Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie, shares some facts with spacEurope concerning the Mars observations (which resulted in breathtaking views like this...) and the upcoming days for ESA’s comet chaser mission.

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There was an image taken through the OH colour filter which function is the indirect detection of water on the comet.

What were the results from Mars? Can you explain how will it work with the comet?

Water dissociates into H and OH. Therefore OH is used as a tracer of water molecules. At Mars we did not detect water (OH respectively). The fact that there is an image in the OH filter is due to the continuum (from dust) in the filter band path. This continuum (measured in an adjacent filter) has to be subtracted. The net signal then is due to the OH radicals. This is how it also works near the comet.

There was an objective in the swingby, the possible detection of Martian rings.

Any news regarding this?

I do not think we detected the rings. Our upper limit will be above what has been achieved eg with Hubble Space Telescope.

The presented images had a 5km/pixel resolution, what is the planned image resolution for close views of 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko?

The best image scale will be 2 cm/pixel from a distance of 1 km from the surface. Resolution will be somewhat better than 5 cm.

Helpful lessons for the main mission goal?

Calibration of the cameras, cross calibration with other instruments onboard Rosetta (VIRTIS) and MEX (HRSC). Stray light investigations.

What are the planned observations for the Earth flyby?

Observations of the moon for calibration. Detection of a sodium tail (Na). Further stray light investigations Martian clouds.

Are there results from their composition?

Not yet, probably CO2 and H2O clouds mixed with dust.

Seing the images one might think that standing on Mars surface would experience a cloudy day...

How would it look like?

After all the clouds are not optically thick looking down on the surface. Therefore more like a haze.

Is there an Earthlike comparison for the observed atmospheric structures?

High altitude haze.

What are OSIRIS comet observation objectives, besides trying to detect water?

Determine properties of the nucleus (shape, topography etc.), understanding cometary activity, determine production rates of dust and gas, investigate the near nucleus environment (jets, dust - gas interaction).

When will there be more available information regarding the data acquired?

Most of the data analysis is team intern (determine performance). No schedule for publication established yet.

Ariane 5 ECA launched

An Ariane 5 ECA launcher, (Ariane 5 latest version, designed to place payloads weighing up to 9.6 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbit) lifted off from ELA-3 launch zone at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana to place two satellites into geostationary transfer orbits as mission.

More at ESA.int

Image Credits: ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE-Service Optique CSG

Waiting for COROT > Update

Some might be thinking what’s up with COROT, which aim is to Search for rocky planets outside our Solar System, a mission led by the French national space agency, CNES and for which ESA provided the telescope optics and the payload testing.

As in the majority of the cases, no news is always sign of...good news...

I asked Dr. Fridlund, the mission Project Scientist, about the workload and the apparent silence around COROT, kindly he, once more, provided a quick update to tell us what’s happening.

“Basically the spacecraft is collecting excellent data and we are all of us very busy with the preparation for taking care of it (development of software, preparation of supporting observations, etc).
The only news at this time is that all systems are working beautifully.

It will be some months till you hear from us about science results however, but it was always planned this way, we needed real data before we could develop the necessary tools since nobody did this before.”

Fly Me to the Moons > Athena Coustenis and a Proposal for the Future

“We are preparing a proposal to suggest to ESA a return to Titan for 2020-2025“

This were the words from Athena Coustenis (LESIA- Observatoire de Paris, Huygens DISR co-investigator) that gave me some serious goose bumps... “an exciting project that will take a lot of work and preparation and imagination of new technologies”.

Such proposal, that has to be ready for the end of June, presents a fantastic scenario for near future space exploration, my first thought it was that was going to be a mission fully dedicated to Titan but the astronomer answer was able to provide me a even larger smile...
Titan and... "Enceladus. We'll study surfaces and atmospheres, from all aspects including the astrobiological point of view...”

And if you’re thinking we’re just talking about orbiters here...
“Balloon, + probes on the surface + orbiter . Many options are considered and we'll have to study several scenarios. The aim is to bring in completely new technology since the launch won't be before 2020 and perhaps as late as 2025, if the mission is selected this round.”


This new technology issue also makes it impossible to see this happening sooner, of course we all would love to see this mission within 5, 10 years but the question is “if you want to have new technology and the time to put such an ambitious mission together” not even a major discovery made under Cassini's fly-bys that would alter this conditions.

We are seeking to reach not only Titan’s surface but also Enceladus appears as a strong possiblity, with concrete and hard work being developed right now to accomplish it.
Titan and its methane domains, lakes and riverbeds, misteries and dreamed acetylene icebergs, hydrocarbon rains and gargantuan clouds, Enceladus and its surface diversity, its fissures and plains, its plumes rising telling an enticing story...

Presenting the project is not only the Huygens team but also a future generation of space explorers “I have people from Huygens, from Cassini and younger people who'll bear the project in the long term”, and this ones? Which missions will they leave for their successors?...

Asked about the nature of the mission, if it will be entirely developed by ESA or a, as Cassini-Huygens, cooperative one, Athena Coustenis was clear: “Both are possible, but I much prefer a cooperation mission (with NASA, JAXA, etc.)”

You, foreseing the worlds to come, sailors of the unknown, explorers of the distant moons...
The future is being build today. The stepping stones for the tomorrow’s amazement are being carried by our contemporaries for future generations to evolve and rejoice with Mankind’s ability to weave its roads towards the beyond.

Each mission, each image, each single bit of data was precedeed by the work of hundreds of dedicated people, at a same time scientists and clairvoyants...
Today, a legion of scientists work under this premisses to build-up a mission that will only eventually lift-off, leaving Earth’s boundaries, in 2020 or 2025...
Some of them, some of us, won’t probably see the result of their enormous task but that won’t prevent them from thinking, drawing, building, testing...dreaming!