The Cassini-Huygens space mission marked its 10th year on Monday and its discoveries continue to be at the center of scientific attention.
"Thanks to Cassini, amazing discoveries have almost become routine. Orbiting Saturn, Cassini is in the middle of the greatest natural laboratory accessible to us in space," observed Dennis Matson, the project scientist who manages the Cassini orbiter science activities.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a joint project involving NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) the European Space Agency (ESA) and Italian Space Agency (ASI) and is focused on studying the planet Saturn, its rings and moons.
This included sending down a probe to the surface of the planet's biggest moon, Titan, which is believed to have much in common with Earth.
"With its rings, dozens of moons and magnetic environment, Saturn is like a mini-solar system, with the planet serving as a stand-in for the sun, and the moons and rings like planets in formation," Matson said.
"Cassini has allowed us to make fundamental strides in understanding the physical processes that created and govern this and other solar systems," the JPL scientist added.
JPL designed and assembled the Cassini orbiter, the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built, while ESA developed the Huygens Titan probe and ASI developed of high-gain antenna and the other instruments used in the mission.
Since entering Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004, the Cassini-Huygens mission has gathered staggering amounts of information about the mysterious planet.
Among its many discoveries, the Cassini-Huygens mission has found that no only do ice geysers shoot out from Saturn's moon Enceladus, but that one of Saturn's rings was created by these ice particles.
Scientists have also found that material from Enceladus is also affecting the rotation of Saturn's magnetic field.
The Huygens probe was ejected towards Titan in late December 2004 and reached the giant moon on January 14, 2005.
The Cassini-Huygens mission was named after Italian astronomer Jean-Dominique Cassini (1625-1712) and Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), a Dutch scientist who first discovered Saturn's rings and, in 1655, its largest moon, Titan.
Cassini discovered Saturn's moons Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys and Dione. In 1675 he also discovered what is known today as the 'Cassini Division', the narrow gap separating Saturn's rings.
