Scientists celebrate probe’s Titanic success

SCIENTISTS were celebrating last night after confirmation a European spacecraft had landed safely on Saturn’s icy cloud-covered moon Titan after a seven- year journey.

The Huygens probe parachuted through Titan’s thick, smoggy atmosphere to reach the surface at about 11.30am. Experts are now anxiously waiting for the first images taken by Huygens’s panoramic camera.

They are expected to reveal a truly alien world. Titan, bigger than the planet Mercury, is the only moon in the solar system with its own atmosphere, made of nitrogen, methane and ammonia.