NASA has released a stunning ‘spacecraft’s eye’ view over Saturn’s moon Enceladus just 10 days before its Cassini mission comes to a dramatic end.
A new movie stitching together images captured by the craft’s narrow-angle camera offers a first-person perspective of the Aug 1 flyby, showing the relative motion of Cassini and the icy moon from about 112,000 miles (181,000 km) above.
The moon, Saturn’s sixth-largest satellite, has become a key target in the search for alien life, after scientists discovered it has nearly all of the ingredients needed to support microbes at its seafloor.
A new movie stitching together images captured by the craft’s narrow-angle camera offers a first-person perspective of the Aug 1 flyby, showing the relative motion of Cassini and the icy moon from about 112,000 miles (181,000 km) above
The new view is a change from the typically static Cassini observations that have been released over the years.
It uses six images, taken with filters that allow infrared, green, and ultraviolet light, according to NASA.
These make for the red, green, and blue components in the resulting movie.
‘The heavens often seem vast and unchanging as seen from Earth, but movement in the skies is the norm,’ NASA explains.
‘The relative motions of both Cassini and Enceladus over a 15-minute period create the movement seen in this movie sequence.’
The Cassini space probe is approaching its final orbit between Saturn and its rings before its fiery plunge into the gassy planet.
The craft is now undertaking the last of its so-called ‘Grand Finale’ orbits, each bringing the probe closer to its long-awaited death dive.
Cassini’s last orbit begins this week on Saturday September 9, with the craft finally ending its historic 13-year mission six days later with a dive directly into Saturn’s atmosphere.
Saturday’s orbit will send the craft through the outermost layers of the planet’s atmosphere, passing just 1,680 kilometres (1,043 miles) above the clouds.
Two days later Cassini will make a final, 119,049-kilometre (73,973-mile) flyby of Saturn’s largest moon Titan, causing the craft to slow down and re-position its orbit for its death dive.
Cassini’s last orbit begins this week on September 9. On September 14, the probe will take its final images of Saturn, snapping images of the gas giant’s hexagon-shaped vortex at its north pole as well as its moons Titan and Enceladus
Cassini has been probing Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, and its entourage of 62 known moons since July 2004, providing enough data for almost 4,000 scientific papers. Pictured are the number of orbits and flybys the craft has performed over the past 13 years of research
On September 14, the probe will take its final images of Saturn, snapping images of the gas giant’s hexagon-shaped vortex at its north pole as well as its moons Titan and Enceladus.
The probe will then turn its antennae toward Earth, transmitting data until the final moment before it burns up as it heads straight into the gas giant’s crushing atmosphere on September 15.
Cassini’s final dive will end a mission that provided groundbreaking discoveries that included seasonal changes on Saturn, the moon Titan’s resemblance to a primordial Earth, and a global ocean on the moon Enceladus with ice plumes spouting from its surface.
‘The mission has been insanely, wildly, beautifully successful, and it’s coming to an end in about two weeks,’ Dr Curt Niebur, Cassini program scientist, said on a telephone conference call with reporters last week.
Last week, Nasa shared a stunning new view of Saturn’s turbulent clouds, captured the day Cassini first began its Grand Finale. The breathtaking photo shows the swirling clouds ‘on top of the world’ at the ringed planet just weeks before Saturn’s northern summer solstice
Cassini’s final photo as it heads into Saturn’s atmosphere will likely be of propellers, or gaps in the rings caused by moonlets, said project scientist Dr Linda Spilker.
The spacecraft will provide near real-time data on the atmosphere until it loses contact with Earth at 7:54 am ET (12:54 am BST) on September 15, Nasa said.
Dr Spilker said Cassini’s latest data on the rings had shown they had a lighter mass than forecast.
That suggests they are younger than expected, at about 120 million years, and thus were created after the birth of the solar system, she said.
During its final orbits between the atmosphere and the rings, Cassini also studied Saturn’s atmosphere and took measurements to determine the size of the planet’s rocky core.
Cassini has been probing Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, and its entourage of 62 known moons since July 2004, providing enough data for almost 4,000 scientific papers.
Since the craft is running low on fuel, Nasa is crashing it into Saturn to avoid any chance Cassini could someday collide with Titan, Enceladus or any other moon that has the potential to support indigenous microbial life.
By destroying the spacecraft, Nasa will ensure that any hitchhiking Earth microbes still alive on Cassini will not contaminate the moons for future study.
Last week, Nasa shared a stunning new view of Saturn’s turbulent clouds, captured the day Cassini first began its Grand Finale.
In a movie stitching together 21 images taken with Cassini’s wide-angle camera, NASA reveals a look at the entirety of the main rings. The images were taken over a period of roughly four minutes on August 20, 2017
The breathtaking photo shows the swirling clouds ‘on top of the world’ at the ringed planet just weeks before Saturn’s northern summer solstice – a period soon to be followed by years of darkness.
Cassini began the first of its final five orbits mid-August, bringing it closer to Saturn than ever before.
Images from its August 20 dive now offer a mesmerising ‘inside out’ perspective from the gap between the planet and its rings.
In a strikingly dynamic photo captured on April 26, 2017 – the day it approached Saturn for its first dive – Cassini observed the planet’s north pole as it remained bathed in sunlight, from about 166,000 miles away.
But soon, the region will be enveloped in darkness.
Nasa’s Cassini space probe (artist’s impression) is approaching its final orbit between Saturn and its rings before its fiery plunge into the gassy planet. The craft is now undertaking the last of its so-called ‘Grand Finale’ orbits, each bringing the craft closer to its long-awaited death dive
‘Although the pole is still bathed in sunlight at present, northern summer solstice on Saturn occurred on May 24, 2017, bringing the maximum solar illumination to the north polar region,’ Nasa said.
‘Now the sun begins its slow descent in the northern sky, which eventually will plunge the north pole into Earth-years of darkness.
‘Cassini’s long mission at Saturn enabled the spacecraft to see the Sun rise over the north, revealing that region in great detail for the first time.’