Cassini Reaches its Destination... At Last!

After almost 7 years hurtling though space, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, along with it's European Huygens probe entered orbit around Saturn late Wednesday. Check out the MSNBC article here, or the CNN article here. The spacecraft has already sent back some beautiful and startling images, revealing minute details in the rings that have never been observed before. A slideshow containing some of these images can also be found at the MSNBC link above.

Cassini is the first man-made satellite of the ringed planet. Our previous visits to Saturn were merely flybys by the Pioneer and Voyager probes in the late 1970s and early '80s. We now have the means to get up close and personal with this marvelous planet, it's rings, and it's many intriguing moons.

Next January, Cassini will release the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which will penetrate the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and the only moon in the solar system known to have an atmosphere. It is an exciting time!

I had been tracking the Cassini mission for several years, but apparently had not been doing a good job of it lately because I had been under the impression that it would not enter orbit until 2005, and then on Wednesday morning, I saw the article saying it was happening later the same day! Anyway, I'm sure I will have some interesting posts in January once the Huygens probe has completed its mission to Titan.