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Astronomers' eyes turn to Titan
 One of the most ambitious space missions in history nears its climax tonight, when a European-built space probe is due to land on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and send back the first look at its fog-shrouded surface. The $US3 billion Cassini-Huygens mission, a joint project of NASA and the European and Italian space agencies, was launched in 1997 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to study Saturn, its rings, its moons and its magnetosphere. In December, Cassini dropped off the saucer-shaped Huygens probe on a three-week journey toward Titan that will culminate in a two-and-a-half hour, parachute-assisted plunge to the moon's surface. The 320 kilometre probe will enter Titan's atmosphere about 8pm AEDT and begin transmitting data gathered by its six onboard instruments and images from its panoramic cameras to Cassini, which will then turn and bounce the information to earth.
Posted by: God Save The World 2005-01-14 |
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