1 Year Ago: The End Of The Cassini Mission

In an interesting coincidence, today marks the 1 year anniversary of Cassini’s Grand Finale – its final plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn, the planet it spent its life studying.

It was one hell of an event – after being in space for nearly 20 years (originally launched in 1997 on a Titan IV) and spending 13 years observing Saturn, the probe was sent in early 2017 on a final orbital course which would result in it entering the atmosphere of Saturn to be destroyed – a safety precaution so the probe could stand no chance of contaminating one of Saturns moons with organic material.

This also allowed us to sample the atmosphere of Saturn directly, a rare an amazing opportunity in its own right.

I won’t go on and on about Cassini – I’ve already done that. Instead, I’ll share these tweets regarding the anniversary. I do have a video which I failed to share last year related to the end of the mission, so if I can find that I’ll share it as well in a future article.

For now, enjoy this look back on the wonderful Cassini mission!

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

 

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