OTD In Space - October 26: Cassini Spacecraft Takes 1st Closeups of Titan

On October 26, 2004, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took the first close-up images of Saturn's largest moon Titan.

The Cassini spacecraft would later drop off a probe on Titan named Huygens, which was a European spacecraft that hitched a ride to the Saturn system with the Cassini mission. But before Cassini dropped off its robotic passenger, it flew by Titan a few times and took some amazing photos. Cassini completed its first flyby on July 3, 2004, but when it swung by a second time on October 26, it got about 300 times closer than it did the first time. At the closest point of this flyby, Cassini was 745 miles away from the surface of Titan. The spacecraft took hundreds of photos during this flyby, and these were the highest resolution views of Titan anyone had ever seen.