For the past 13 years, the Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn, capturing high resolution photos of our solar system's second-biggest planet, as well as its many moons and spectacular rings. As the end of the orbiter's mission approaches, it is making a series of dives through the 1,500-mile-wide (2,400km) gap between Saturn and its rings before plunging into the planet's surface later this year.
As Cassini prepares for its death dive, IBTimes UK looks back at the orbiter's best shots.
19 July 2013: A natural-colour image of Saturn from space, the first in which Saturn, its moons and rings, and Earth, Venus and Mars, all are visible. The image captures 404,880 miles (651,591km) across Saturn and its inner ring system, including all of Saturn's rings out to the E ring, which is Saturn's second outermost ringNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute19 July 2013: Planet Earth and its moon are seen behind Saturn's rings. Nearly 900 million miles (1.5bn km) from Earth, Cassini took a picture of its home planet, a very small, blue-tinged dotNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute12 December 2012: The six-sided jet stream at Saturn's north pole. There is a massive hurricane tightly centred on the north pole, with an eye about 50 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Numerous small vortices are also present, which appear as reddish ovals. Some of these vortices spin clockwise while the hexagon and hurricane spin counterclockwise. Some of those smaller features are swept along with the jet stream of the hexagon, as if on a racetrack. The biggest of these vortices, seen near the lower right corner of the hexagon and appearing whitish, spans about 2,200 miles (3,500km), approximately twice the size of the largest hurricane on EarthNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute17 November 2011: Two false-colour images show detailed patterns that change during one Saturn day within the huge storm in the planet's northern hemisphere. This animation switches back and forth between the two mosaics allowing comparisons of the subtly changing cloud details. Several features in the more southern part of the storm can be seen moving to the right, or east, while several features in the more northern part of the storm can be seen moving to the left, or westNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute29 April 2013: The spinning vortex of Saturn's north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-colour image from Cassini. The eye measures 1,250 miles (2,000km) across, with cloud speeds as fast as 330 miles per hour. This image is among the first sunlit views of Saturn's north pole captured by Cassini's imaging cameras. When the spacecraft arrived in the Saturnian system in 2004, it was northern winter and the north pole was in darkness.Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute30 January 2017: An image the showing the incredible closeness with which Cassini, in its 'Ring-Grazing' orbits phase, is observing Saturn's dazzling rings of icy debris. This image shows a region in Saturn's outer B ringNASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute22 September 2014: The Cassini spacecraft captured a rare photo of three of Saturn's moons that could hardly be more different from each other. The largest of the three is Tethys (660 miles or 1,062km across). Meanwhile, Hyperion (168 miles or 270km across) is the "wild one" with a chaotic spin, and Prometheus (53 miles or 86km across) is a tiny moon that busies itself sculpting one of Saturn's rings.Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute27 July 2015: Enceladus, Saturn's sixth-largest moon at about 310 miles (500km) across. This moon is covered in ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies in the solar system.Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute15 October 2015: Cassini spied this tight trio of craters nicknamed 'The Snowman' as it approached Saturn's icy moon Enceladus for a close flyby. The craters, located at high northern latitudes, are sliced through by thin fractures – part of a network of similar cracks that wrap around the snow-white moon.Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science InstituteThe north pole of Saturn's icy moon EnceladusNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute22 June 2011: Plumes spray water-rich ice from multiple locations along the 'tiger stripes' near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus, suggesting a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath its icy crust. Some of the water vapo'r falls back as 'snow', while the rest escapes, and supplies most of the material making up Saturn's E ringNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute8 September 2015: Two of Saturn's moons, Dione (near) and Enceladus (far). Although the moons are composed of about the same materials, Enceladus has a considerably higher reflectivity than Dione and as a result, it appears brighter against the dark night skyNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute29 August 2012: The giant moon Titan appears before Saturn undergoing seasonal changes. Saturn's largest moon measures 3,200 miles (5,150km) across and is larger than the planet MercuryNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute13 March 2007: This false colour image shows evidence of seas, likely filled with liquid methane or ethane, in the high northern latitudes of Saturn's moon Titan. One such feature is larger than any of the Great Lakes of North AmericaNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute13 February 2010: Saturn's battered moon Mimas may sport a thin global ocean buried miles beneath its icy surface, raising the prospect of another life-friendly habitat in the solar system.Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute18 June 2011: Saturn's small, icy moon HeleneNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute8 October 2007: A view of Saturn's two-toned moon Iapetus (912 miles or 1,468km across)Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute11 June 2014: Two view of Phoebe, the largest of Saturn's outer or 'irregular'. The image on the left side shows Cassini's view on approach to Phoebe, while the right side shows the spacecraft's departing perspective. Phoebe's shape is approximately spherical, with a diameter of 136 miles (219km) on its longest axis and 127 miles (204km) on its shortest axis, making it approximately 16 times smaller than Earth's moonNasa/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
The Cassini mission is a joint project between Nasa, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. It is the first in-depth, up-close study of Saturn and its system of rings and moons, which started in 1997 when the orbiter and an ESA probe were launched into space. Seven years later, they reached Saturn, and the Cassini spacecraft became the first to orbit the planet.
