The 16 Most Gorgeous Pictures Cassini Took Of Saturn Before Dying In Her Atmosphere
In 1997, NASA launched the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft to explore and photograph the mysterious planet Saturn. And 20 years later, NASA released high-resolution photos of exactly what the unmanned spaceship was able to see.
Researchers at NASA and the European Space Agency teamed up to design Cassini-Huygens in the 1980s. Named after astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens, the spacecraft was designed to not only photograph the planet, but also to collect data from it and its 62 moons. These latest photos came from Cassini-Huygens's final phase - called the Grand Finale - which started in April 2017. On September 15, 2017, Cassini's mission came to a close, and it burned up in Saturn's upper atmosphere.
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Eye Of The Storm
This is a storm off the top of Saturn's north pole. Researchers estimate the storm is 1,250 miles across.
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A Tiny Moon And Big Rings
In the bottom left corner, you can see a small white dot. That's Saturn's moon Mimas. Compare that to the mammoth-sized Saturn, and it's easy to see why Saturn has so many moons. They're all quite small!
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The Yellow Surface
Here we can see in color the surface of Saturn, and the shadow its rings cast upon it.
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The North Pole
Just like Earth, Saturn has a north and south pole. The north pole is a swirl of storms and clouds, some of which travel in a hexagonal pattern.
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A Sign Of Life?
Saturn's moon Enceladus might have an ocean on it, or at least scientists think it might. This image shows geysers around the moon's south pole, with what appear to be ice-water rivers underneath its ice shell.
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Beautiful Rings
This shot was taken during Saturn's winter months. When the sun climbs higher in the sky, the shadow cast on the rings will lessen, and Saturn will be in its summer solstice.
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