Geekera, The Invincible

"There aren't too many planets with liquid, said the scientist who helped design the camera that took the above picture. "There's Earth, and now there's Titan."

A European space probe Friday sent back the first detailed pictures of the frozen surface of Saturn's moon Titan, showing stunning black and white images of what appeared to be hilly terrain riddled with channels or riverbeds carved by a liquid.

One picture, taken about 10 miles above the surface as the Huygens spacecraft descended by parachute to a safe landing after a seven-year voyage from Earth, showed snaking, dark lines cut into the light-colored surface. ...

Another image, taken about five miles above the surface, showed light and dark masses, which ... seemed to be shadows, indicating a varied terrain. The dark areas appeared to be flooded or to have been so at an earlier time.

A third image taken at the surface showed several large white chunks - boulders or blocks of water ice - in the foreground and a stretch of gray surface behind them.

Titan is the first moon other than ours which we have explored. There can't be any actual life there because it's much too cold: about minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 180 degrees Celsius). Liquid water, absolutely necessary for life as we know it, obviously would not exist at such an extreme temperature. However, it's atmosphere, rich in nitrogen and methane, is thought to be similar to that of Earth in its early days any may provide some clues as to how life originated here, including naturally-forming chemical compounds that could be precursors to organic molecules.

The researchers have waited over seven years for this moment, and it was said that mission officials "had tears in their eyes as the first signal was picked up." The Cassini-Huygens mission, launched in October 1997, from Cape Canaveral, is a joint effort among NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian space agency to study Saturn and its moons.

And now we've actually got pictures from the surface of one. Really cool.