Saturn reveals its secrets

Abstract

The long wait since the launch of human-kind's most ambitious planetary-exploration mission to date is finally paying off. Launched in 1997, NASA's Cassini spacecraft succeeded spectacularly in entering Saturn's orbit last July, and earlier this year its payload – the European Space Agency's Huygens probe – successfully landed on Saturn's largest moon Titan. Now, eight months into Cassini's four-year tour, the team behind the orbiter mission has released its first results (Science 307 1226–1276 and Nature 433 717–725).