Cassinis

Cassinis is a term that can refer to several entities, most notably the Cassini spacecraft and the Cassini-Huygens mission. The Cassini spacecraft was a robotic probe launched by NASA in 1997 to study Saturn and its system of rings and moons. It was a joint venture between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The mission successfully reached Saturn in 2004 and spent over 13 years orbiting the planet, gathering an unprecedented amount of data.

The Cassini-Huygens mission included the Huygens probe, which was released from Cassini to land on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Huygens successfully landed on Titan in January 2005, providing the first direct measurements of its atmosphere and surface. Cassini itself continued to orbit Saturn, observing its rings, atmosphere, and numerous moons. Key discoveries from the mission include the presence of liquid water oceans beneath the icy shells of moons like Enceladus and the detection of complex organic molecules in Titan's atmosphere.

The mission concluded in September 2017 when Cassini was intentionally plunged into Saturn's atmosphere. This controlled deorbit was designed to prevent any potential forward contamination of Saturn's moons with Earth microbes. The Cassini mission significantly advanced our understanding of the Saturnian system and planetary science in general. The name Cassini is also a surname, most famously associated with Jean-Dominique Cassini, an Italian-French astronomer who discovered four moons of Saturn and the famous Cassini Division in Saturn's rings.