Since ESA's Huygens probe successfully descended through the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and safely landed on its surface on Jan. 14, 2005, the data it collected have revealed an extraordinary new world.
The unique data obtained by the six Huygens experiments are now being archived in the ESA Planetary Science Archive. A copy of the archived data set also is available in the NASA Planetary Data System. ESA opened access to the Huygens archive on Wednesday to the wide scientific community.
"The release of the Huygens scientific data archive represents a major milestone in the Huygens mission" said Jean-Pierre Lebreton, Huygens project scientist.
The data sets include not only the data, but also calibration information and documentation necessary to understand and process the products, and to carry out scientific analyses. The full archive containing all data available to the scientists is also open to the public for download.
"This achievement is the result of a major effort performed during the last three years by all the Huygens teams, scientists and engineers, from Europe and the United States," said Olivier Witasse, ESA planetary scientist.
It is possible to retrieve data from the following instruments: Aerosol Collector and Pyrolyser, Gas Chromatograph and Mass Spectrometer, Doppler Wind Experiment and Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument.
Engineering data are also available.
Data from the Descent Imager Spectral Radiometer and Surface Science Package experiments, together with the official Huygens entry and descent trajectory are expected to be released in the September-October timeframe.
Any questions and feedback related to the use of the Huygens archive data set should be sent to [email protected].
