Many aspects of Saturn make it one of the most extraordinary planets in this solar system. In 1610, Galileo Galilei was the first to view Saturn’s system of rings; he happened to be viewing their edge and failed to recognize them as rings. In fact, he mistakenly interpreted the rings to be two moons similar to those he had discovered near the planet Jupiter. In 1655, a Dutch astronomer named Christian Huygens was able to di

Voyagers 1 and 2 were not the last spacecraft to visit the planet. The most recent spacecraft to visit Saturn is the Cassini-Huygens probe. Cassini is the biggest and most complicated mission that NASA has ever built, and is maybe the last of the big spacecraft, which will explore the outer solar system for decades to come. Named after the 17th century astronomer, Jean Dominique Cassini, who discovered the large dark gap in the Saturn’s rings, and the Huygens probe is named after the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan in 1655. Cassini’s mission is to explore Saturn, its icy rings, the moon Titan, other moons and the huge magnetic bubble that surrounds them is being described as the most ambitious planetary mission ever mounted. The mission also entails the first descent of a probe to a moon of another planet, sending the Huygens probe to the surface of Titan, by far the most distant landing ever attempted on another object in the solar system (“Astronomy Now”).

There is no other planet in the solar system that is adorned like Saturn. Its exquisite ring system is unrivaled. In contrast to the vivid colors and wild turbulence found in the clouds, Saturn’s atmosphere has a more subtle hue, and the high-altitude haze hides its markings. Three American spacecraft have visited Saturn; in 1979, Pioneer 11 sped by Saturn returning the first close-up images. Voyager 1 followed in November 1980, sending back photographs that revealed for the first time Saturn’s ring system and moons. Voyager 2 flew by the planet and its moons in August 1981. Presently exploring many of Saturn’s characteristics from its icy rings to the magnetic field is the Cassini probe, a very ambitious mission (“Great Space Place”). These discoveries and close-ups of the exquisite characteristics of Saturn are what make this planet the most interesting and amazing of the solar system.

The first spacecraft flyby accomplished by Pioneer 11 in 1979 accomplished many findings of Saturn’

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