Cassini's Finale

​

NASA's 13-year exploration of Saturn had its grand finale on Friday morning, when the Cassini spacecraft was sent into Saturn's atmosphere to disintegrate.

​

The mission had begun on October 15 1997, sent aloft aboard a Titan IVB Centaur rocket.

​

​

The Cassini orbiter was accompanied by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which was destined on January 14 2005 to land on the surface of Titan, the giant moon of Saturn.​

​

​

​

The Cassini orbiter then travelled throughout Saturn's entire system of moons, and its rings, and sent back spectacular images like these ...​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

And on one amazing image, Cassini was able to look back, through Saturn's rings, and photograph the planet of its origin ...​

​

​

​

This extraordinary exploration performed by Cassini and Huygens must surely rank as one of humankind's greatest achievements.​

​

​

 

Cassini has certainly sent back a heap of exciting images for our scientists to pour over Insp. And the clarity of what we are getting is just so much better than when we first started to get up there and photograph things. Thanks for starting this thread.

 

​

Indeed, Akbloke. And I still remember as a young lad, the wonder of being able to see for the first time, the far side of our own Moon ...

​

​

​

This feat was achieved by Russia's Luna 3 (E-2A No.1) spacecraft - launched in 1959 as part of the Luna programme, it was the first-ever mission to photograph the far side of the Moon.

​

​

 

​

Here is a collection of stunning images from the Cassini mission :

The Best of Cassini - 13 Years in Orbit Around Saturn​

​