juliensimon/esa-huygens-titan-descent

ESA Huygens Titan Descent

<div align="center"> <img src="banner.jpg" alt="Saturn and its rings, captured by the Cassini spacecraft" width="400"> <p><em>Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI</em></p> </div>

Part of the [Solar System Datasets](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/solar-system-datasets-67d1e3b4343a25fc6cf402b4) and [Planetary Science Datasets](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/planetary-science-datasets-69c24cb17e3db14fc30f0716) collections on Hugging Face.

On January 14, 2005, the ESA Huygens probe made history as the first human-made object to land on a body in the outer Solar System. Released from the Cassini orbiter, Huygens descended through Titan's thick nitrogen-methane atmosphere for 2 hours 27 minutes, transmitting data from 160 km altitude down to the surface. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) captured images revealing drainage channels, shorelines, and a landscape shaped by liquid methane — evidence of an active hydrological cycle on another world. The Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) analyzed atmospheric composition during descent, while the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI) measured temperature, pressure, and density profiles. The Surface Science Package (SSP) recorded the impact and confirmed Huygens landed on a soft, damp surface — likely methane-saturated hydrocarbon sediment. This dataset is the only in-situ observation catalog from Titan's surface and atmosphere.

Dataset description

This dataset contains 13,995 observations across 8 instruments from the ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA), conforming to the EPN-TAP standard. Each row represents one observation or data granule, with timing, spatial coverage, instrument parameters, and access URLs.

Instruments

• —DISR: 12,024 observations
• —GCMS: 1,606 observations
• —HUYGENS_HK: 217 observations
• —HASI: 118 observations
• —SSP: 16 observations
• —DTWG: 7 observations
• —ACP: 4 observations
• —DWE: 3 observations

Schema (key columns)

The full schema contains up to ~50 columns following the EPN-TAP standard.

Quick stats

• —13,995 total observations
• —8 instruments
• —1 distinct targets
• —Time span: JD 2450574.5 – 2453385.3

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/esa-huygens-titan-descent", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Observations per instrument
print(df["instrument_name"].value_counts())

# DISR imaging observations
disr = df[df["instrument_name"] == "DISR"]
print(f"{len(disr):,} DISR observations")

# Filter by descent phase (time range)
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
df.groupby("instrument_name").size().sort_values(ascending=False).plot(kind="bar")
plt.title("Huygens observations by instrument")
plt.ylabel("Count")

Data source

ESA Planetary Science Archive — EPN-TAP service at https://psa.esa.int/psa-tap/tap/sync.

Related datasets

• —esa-rosetta-observations — ESA Rosetta comet mission
• —cassini — Cassini Saturn orbiter
• —galileo-atmosphere — Galileo Jupiter atmospheric probe
• —huygens-atmosphere — Huygens atmospheric profiles

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Support

If you find this dataset useful, please give it a ❤️ on the dataset page and share feedback in the Community tab! Also consider giving a ⭐️ to the space-datasets repo.

Citation

@dataset{huygens_titan_descent,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {ESA Huygens Titan Descent},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/esa-huygens-titan-descent},
  note = {Based on ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA) EPN-TAP service}
}

License

CC-BY-NC-3.0-IGO