On the first of its 45 encounters with Titan, the Cassini-Huygens mission has observed Saturn's giant moon at close quarters. The planet-sized moon looks increasingly like another world. As the data arrived scientists were elated but Titan still retains many of its secrets.
Although the surface displays highly contrasted areas, the scientists remain baffled, not least by the more complex organic molecules than anticipated detected in Titan's atmosphere.
Cassini also observed the area in which the Huygens probe will be arriving on 14 January 2005, and its radar instrument peeked through thick cloud cover, mapping about 1% of the moon's surface.
This TV Exchange provides a summary of the observations from most Cassini instruments, which have partly been animated and are completed by soundbites from scientists at the press briefings on 27 and 28 October. The programme also features a new 3-D graphics sequence of the Titan fly-by.
The script is online under http://television.esa.int/photos/05112004.pdf

A-ROLL
10:00:41
Light rain over the Madrid tracking station of the Deep Space Network on 26
October didn't stop the data from arriving, a few hours after the flyby.
On the first of its 45 encounters with Titan, the Cassini-Huygens mission has
observed Saturn's giant moon at close quarters.
10:01:00
At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists waited patiently as the data were
received and displayed. But Titan was keeping many of its secrets.
10:01:09
CUT A : Caroline Porco (on camera) - Title : Cassini ISS team leader
""Last night the solar system became a smaller place...
... there's not much we are absolutely confident about.""
10:01:39
Cassini's navigation was spot on, passing less than 1200 km from the moon's
surface... allowing instruments to taste the upper levels of its atmosphere...
and to survey an area of Titan with a remarkable clarity, with imaging resolutions
up to 200 metres per pixel.
10:01:59
Surprise: fewer methane clouds than expected were seen, but from their
movement a fi