Saturn's moon reveals its secrets
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/11/18/1

30 November 2005

Europe's Huygens probe has made the first direct study of Saturn's
largest moon Titan and its atmosphere. The probe landed on Titan in
January after being released from its parent Cassini spacecraft on
Christmas day 2004. The new data -- published by seven international
research teams in Nature this week -- could lead to a better
understanding of the frozen conditions that existed on the Earth when
it was young.

Titan lies ten times further away from the Sun than Earth and has never
been studied directly. Previous missions like the fly-by Voyager
spacecraft in 1980 and 1981 were unable to penetrate through the thick
organic haze surrounding the moon. Earlier this year, the Cassini
mission took remote images of Titan while orbiting Saturn using various
onboard instruments. But the Huygens probe has now made the first
in-situ study of the moon\u2019s atmosphere and surface using six
different instruments.

See: http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/11/18/1