Space probe Cassini is going into orbit around Saturn this evening. It has been travelling for close to seven years to get there. In December, the Huygens space probe it has been carrying along for the ride will take off for a landing on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, which appears to have an atmosphere and oceans of some sort.
Cassini is one of the last relics of NASA from before the “Faster, Better, Cheaper” era, and as a result is a big, nuclear-powered – through radioisotope decay – Cadillac of space probes. Wonder if future missions will start looking like that, now that we have the “Moon, then Mars” agenda? :)