Passage to a Ringed World

This book is for you. You will find that it lives up to the promise of its cover and title. The text is authoritative, but at the same time easy to understand. It is written for any layperson who is interested in space exploration. In this book, we will give you a good look at what is involved in sending a large spacecraft to the outer solar system. Join us and share in the excitement of this extended voyage of discovery! One of the first things you will learn is that Cassini–Huygens is an international mission. Seventeen countries are involved. You will also learn that Huygens is an atmospheric probe that the Cassini spacecraft will deliver to Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Titan has a gaseous atmosphere that is thicker and more obscuring than the atmosphere here on Earth. We will look through Titan’s atmosphere with Cassini’s radar and discover surface details for the first time. The mission will find out if there are really liquid hydrocarbons on Titan’s surface in the form of lakes or seas. The Cassini spacecraft itself will spend four years in orbit about Saturn. We will examine the rings and visit many of the satellites. We will sample special locations in the magnetosphere that are believed to harbor interesting —some might say strange — plasma processes (that is, electromagnetic interactions involving electrons, protons and ions).