You may have heard something about a spacecraft flying past
Titan recently. Titan is the largest moon of Saturn,
and one of the largest moons in the entire solar system.
It's the only moon with a significant atmosphere.
In fact, Titan's hazy clouds are so dense that they
block our view of the surface; pictures taken by
the Voyager spacecraft show a featureless orange sphere
The Cassini spacecraft is currently in a braking orbit around Saturn. It passed very close to Titan on Oct 26, coming within about 200,000 miles -- that's roughly the distance between us and the Moon. It used a special camera to take pictures in infrared light, which can pass through the hazy atmosphere, revealing features on the surface below. Below is one set of these images, hot off the press; you can find more at
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/events/titana/index.cfm
On January 14, 2005, the Cassini spacecraft will drop a probe called Huygens into the atmosphere of Titan. It will float down gently via parachute, sending back pictures and data on the atmosphere and surface. You can read more about Cassini and Huygens at the Cassini mission website,