Cassini sees Titan landing site

Images of Titan sent back by Huygens puzzled scientists

The US Cassini spacecraft will return images of the landing zone on Saturn's moon Titan where Europe's Huygens probe touched down earlier this year.

Scientists hope Cassini's flyby will put in context the images returned by Huygens when it parachuted down through Titan's atmosphere on 14 January.

On Friday, the US spacecraft passed Titan from 1,353km (841 miles) up, using radar to peer at its surface.

Cassini released Huygens on 25 December 2004 for its rendezvous with Titan.

The US probe carried Huygens with it on the seven-year voyage from Earth to Saturn, which ended on 1 July 2004, when Cassini entered orbit around the ringed planet.

This is Cassini's ninth planned flyby of Saturn's large moon.

The spacecraft's radar imaged the dark terrain west of a continent-like feature on Titan called Xanadu, which includes the Huygens landing site.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a co-operative project between the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian space agency (Asi).