The spectacular success of the Huygens mission to land on the surface of Titan is only one of a series of ongoing unmanned space projects which are currently exploring the solar system. However, the future of such deep space scientific projects may Be in jeopardy as funds are directed back towards manned space exploratibn. BILLREAD looks at what's out there. The photographs look like pebbles on a beach. However, what Was unusual about the pictures was that they were not taken on Earth but from the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, 934m miles away. The landing of the Huygens probe on to Saturn's largest moon Titan from the Cassini spacecraft was one of the most exciting missions of space exploration in recent years. Launched in October 1997, the joint .NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission (named after the 17th century Italian and Dutch astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens who both vation of Saturn and its moons) flew past Venus and Jupiter and reached the orbit of Saturn in June 2004, after which it flew past the moon of Phoebe, followed by Titan in October. On 25 December 2004 ESA's Huygens lander separated from the mothership and heade'd for Titan where it parachuted down through the atmosphere to land successfully on the surface on 14 January. Huygens was able to broadcast data for an hour and 12min while Cassini was above the horizon. However, messages from Huygens continued to be heard via radio telescopes on Earth for a further two hours.
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