Titanic Titan

In the midst of the AnisPitt breakup, it's difficult to imagine that the news cycle would have room for any other news story of consequence. Never mind the tsunami wiping 160,000 people off the face of the planet, or the ongoing carnage in Iraq. Nah, nothing matters more to Entertainment Tonight devotees than the breathlessly-announced celebrity separation of the week.

If you're still mourning the end of this union, feel free to return to the makeshift Brad-Jen altar that you hastily set up in your basement as soon as you heard the news.

For the rest of us, I hope we take a moment or two to think about space exploration, and why it matters to us. Certainly more than a couple of vacuous celebs.

The Huygens probe successfully separated from the Cassini spacecraft last week and subsequently landed on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. Data beamed back are prompting scientists to rewrite the books on how this distant and icy world came to be. They're going to be analyzing the implications as they relate to our own understanding of Earth for years to come.

In short, this is significant. When usually-sober scientists and engineers break down in tears of overwhelming joy at a news conference, it's significant.

The NASA home page for the combined Cassini-Huygens mission is here. The Jet Propulsion Lab mission home page is here. The European Space Agency page for the Huygens lander component is here.

Read. Enjoy. Learn.

Don't forget to blow out the Brad-Jen candles on your altar before you tuck in.