The Cassini-Huygens space probe, now circling Saturn and her moons and sending back tons of data, started its seven year trek on October 15, 1997. It arrived at the planet in June 2004 for a four year mission, which it completed in 2008 however it is still going strong. It has sent back hundreds of gigabytes of data on Saturn, Titan, Enceladus, Iapetus, Dione, Hyperion, Tethys and other moons.
Starting this week, Cassini will make three close encounters with Enceladus. She will fly through the icy material continually erupting from the moon's surface. A tricky maneuver, given the speed of the probe and what damage even a small particle can do.
Part of the mission was to deploy the Huygens lander on the surface of Titan. It landed with little difficulty and transmitted about 90 minutes after touchdown. Images show an orange surface covered with hydrocarbon-coated water ice pebbles. The temperature was a balmy -179.35 °C! It's the farthest surface landing from Earth.
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