Cassini-Huygens is a joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft that was launched in 1997 to study the planet Saturn and its moons.
The Cassini orbiter studied Saturn and its system for over 13 years, and the Huygens probe was deployed to land on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in 2005.
The Cassini-Huygens mission had several scientific goals, including:
- Mapping the surface of Titan and studying its atmosphere.
- Studying the rings of Saturn and their composition.
- Investigating the magnetic and gravity fields of Saturn and its moons.
- Searching for potential signs of life on Saturn's moons.
Some of the key scientific discoveries made by the Cassini-Huygens mission include:
- The discovery of liquid methane seas on Titan, which are similar to Earth's oceans.
- The discovery of geysers on the south pole of the moon Enceladus, which are thought to be coming from a subsurface ocean.
- Detailed mapping of the surface of Saturn's moon, including the discovery of lakes and rivers of liquid methane on Titan.
- High-resolution images of Saturn's rings and the discovery of new ringlets and moons.
- The discovery of a massive storm at the north pole of Saturn, later named as 'The Great White Spot'
The mission ended on September 15, 2017, when the Cassini spacecraft was deliberately crashed into Saturn to prevent the possibility of contaminating any of the moons with microbial life from Earth.