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IPFS News Link • Space Travel and Exploration

Cassini Probe Will Have Busy Final Year at Titan

• http://www.space.com, By Calla Cofield

Right down to the last possible second of its life, Cassini will be working hard, sending back to Earth the closest images of Saturn ever captured.

But the funeral march hasn't begun just yet. There's still a lot of work that the probe is scheduled to complete before September, including an additional, close flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. By the end of its life, Cassini will have made over 125 close passes of the alien moon, which bears a slightly eerie resemblance to Earth.

Why do scientists keep going back to Titan? Besides the pure pursuit of understanding an alien world, studying Titan's complex atmosphere can actually help scientists better understand Earth's atmosphere. And it's possible that even though life as we know it on Earth could never form on Titan, this moon may still have something to teach scientists about the likelihood of life arising elsewhere in the universe. [Titan, Largest Moon of Saturn, Explained (Infographic)]


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