Cassini’s Final Dive: The Most Breathtaking Close-Ups of Saturn Ever Captured!
Tuesday, August 28, 2017 | NEWS | 6,996 Views

NASA’s Cassini probe is on a dramatic death plunge, marking the end of an extraordinary 20-year journey through space. The nuclear-powered spacecraft has spent 13 years orbiting Saturn, sending back a treasure trove of data and more than half a million images. These include stunning close-ups of the gas giant, its iconic rings, and its enigmatic moons—such as Titan, which boasts a thick atmosphere, and the icy Enceladus, which harbors a subsurface ocean that might support microbial life.

To avoid any risk of contaminating these potentially habitable environments, NASA has carefully orchestrated Cassini’s demise, steering it towards a controlled descent into Saturn’s dense atmosphere. With its fuel reserves nearly depleted, the spacecraft is set to burn up like a meteor in a grand finale that will conclude one of the most ambitious planetary missions ever undertaken.

Above is an artist’s impression of what Cassini might witness as it plunges into Saturn’s clouds for its final moments.

On Monday, Cassini initiated the first of its last five orbits around Saturn, briefly dipping into the upper layers of the planet’s atmosphere. This daring maneuver is part of what NASA calls the "Grand Finale"—a spectacular conclusion to the $3.26-billion mission that will culminate on September 15, when Cassini makes its final, irreversible descent.

“As Cassini makes these five daring dives into Saturn, it essentially becomes the first-ever atmospheric probe of the planet,” said Laura Mitchell, Cassini’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a press release. “This is a long-standing goal of planetary exploration, and we are setting the stage for future missions with these final observations.”

These last orbits will provide unprecedented data about Saturn’s atmosphere, its swirling cloud formations, the composition of its rings, and the mysterious forces of its gravity and magnetic fields.

“It’s Cassini’s blaze of glory. The spacecraft will be collecting data until its very last moment,” Mitchell previously told Business Insider.

Titan’s Gravity: A Crucial Player in Cassini’s Final Maneuvers

Gravity from Titan, Saturn’s massive moon, is playing a crucial role in shaping Cassini’s final flight path. By using Titan’s gravitational pull, NASA engineers have been able to adjust Cassini’s trajectory without expending large amounts of fuel.

Above is an artistic rendering of Cassini observing a sunset through Titan’s thick, hazy atmosphere—one of its most intriguing discoveries.

These two images of Titan, taken on March 21, 2017, and released by NASA on August 11, reveal new details about the moon’s surface, including atmospheric clouds and intricate haze layers.

Cassini’s first of its last five orbits took it into the uncharted space between Saturn’s rings and the planet itself. Data from this historic flyby is already being transmitted back to NASA’s mission control. Scientists hope this unprecedented close-up will provide new insights into the atmosphere of Saturn, which consists mainly of hydrogen (about 75%) and helium.

The false-color image above, captured by Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on May 18, 2017, from approximately 750,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) away, reveals Saturn’s turbulent clouds, which appear like brush strokes due to the complex interactions of gases in its upper atmosphere.

A Magnetic Mystery: Saturn’s Puzzling Magnetic Field

One of the most baffling discoveries Cassini has made is that Saturn’s magnetic field appears to have no discernible tilt relative to its rotation axis. This contradicts conventional theories of planetary magnetic fields and makes it surprisingly difficult to determine the exact length of a day on Saturn.

Here is a breathtaking close-up of Saturn’s intricate rings as seen by Cassini.

A Final Glimpse at Prometheus and Saturn’s F Ring

Before beginning its final plunge, Cassini captured this stunning image of Saturn’s moon Prometheus nestled within the planet’s narrow and wispy F ring. The spacecraft used its narrow-angle camera to take this visible-light image on May 13, 2017.

Prometheus, a small moon measuring approximately 53 miles (86 kilometers) across, interacts gravitationally with the F ring, creating delicate, rippling structures. On August 20, Cassini will dive even deeper into Saturn’s atmosphere, potentially observing the planet’s glowing northern auroras and measuring the extreme temperatures of its massive southern polar vortex.

The image above is a false-color composite created from red, green, and ultraviolet spectral filters, taken on July 16, 2017, at a distance of approximately 777,000 miles (1.25 million kilometers). Cassini captured this view by gazing beyond Saturn’s sunlit horizon, revealing a thin, detached haze layer along the planet’s edge, which gradually fades toward the right side of the image.

Sampling Saturn’s Rings: Unraveling Their Mysteries

During its last passages through the rings, Cassini will also collect and analyze direct samples of ring particles. This data will help scientists determine the density and composition of Saturn’s rings, shedding light on their origins and evolution.

Cassini’s wide-angle camera took the image above on February 25, 2017.

In this stunning photograph, the morning light illuminates Saturn’s undulating cloud patterns and the smooth, curved arcs of its rings. This view, captured from about 10 degrees above the ring plane, showcases the ethereal beauty of the planet’s dynamic atmosphere.

Cassini will use Titan’s gravity one final time on September 11 to precisely align its trajectory for the ultimate descent. On September 15, the spacecraft will plunge into Saturn’s thick atmosphere, where it will continue transmitting data until the very last moment before disintegrating under the planet’s immense pressure.

Above is one of Cassini’s final images of Titan, taken on May 29, 2017. The spacecraft gazes at the night side of Saturn’s largest moon, emphasizing the dense and extended nature of Titan’s hazy atmosphere. This breathtaking view was acquired from a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometers).

As Cassini’s incredible mission comes to a close, scientists and space enthusiasts alike are left with an astonishing legacy of discovery. The spacecraft’s final moments will mark the end of an era, but the data it has collected will continue to fuel new scientific breakthroughs for decades to come.