Cassini at Saturn: Huygens Results (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780387261294)

Cassini at Saturn - Huygens Results brings the story of the Cassini-Huygens mission and their joint exploration of the Saturnian system right up to date. Cassini entered orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004. Here the author reports 8 months of scientific data available for review, including the most spectacular images of Saturn, its rings and satellites ever obtained by a space mission. The book contains a 16-page colour section, with a selection of the most stunning early images. The Huygens craft will be released by Cassini in December 2004 and should parachute through the clouds of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in January 2005. David Harland tells the exciting story of the this craft's journey to the surface of one of the most enigmatic bodies on the Solar System, the only moon to have a dense atmosphere and possibly lakes of liquid gas at -190 C on its surface. Titan is considered to be an early Earth in deep freeze, possibly with the building blocks of life in its atmosphere. There is great interest in the first results and images of Titan's surface, and this book will be the first to appear with an incisive summary of this groundbreaking material.