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Cassini's Final Plunge (Top View)

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Cassini's Final Plunge (Side View)

Cassini final plunge graphic

August 28, 2017

This graphic shows Cassini's final plunge toward Saturn, with tick marks representing time intervals of 2 minutes, leading to the spacecraft's entry into the atmosphere.

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NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Ultraviolet and infrared images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope show active and quiet auroras at Saturn's north and south poles. Saturn's auroras glow when energetic electrons dive into the planet's atmosphere and collide with hydrogen molecules. Sometimes a blast of fast solar wind, composed of mostly electrons and protons, creates an active aurora at Saturn, as occurred on April 5 and May 20, 2013. The first set of images, as seen in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum by Hubble, shows an active aurora dancing around Saturn's north pole on April 5. The movie then shows a relatively quiet time between April 19 to 22 and between May 18 and 19. The aurora flares up again in Hubble images from May 20. This version, shown in false-color, has been processed to show the auroras more clearly. A second set of ultraviolet images shows a closer view of an active north polar aurora in white. This set comes from Cassini ultraviolet imaging spectrograph observations on May 20 and 21. The last set of images, in the infrared, shows a quiet southern aurora (in green) in observations from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on May 17. Saturn's inner heat glows in red, with dark areas showing where high clouds block the heat. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D. C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph was designed and built at, and the team is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The VIMS team is based at the University of Arizona in Tucson. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://www.nasa.gov/saturn and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Colorado/Central Arizona College and NASA/ESA/University of Leicester and NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Lancaster University

Auroras on Saturn

Dance of Saturn's auroras

Milestones in Cassini's final dive toward Saturn.

Graphic of Cassini's final dive toward Saturn

Milestones in Cassini's Final Dive

This diagram created by Cassini mission planners illustrates the close approaches of the spacecraft during its Grand Finale orbits between Saturn's innermost (D) ring and the giant planet's atmosphere.

Illustration showing close approach to Saturn's atmosphere.

Cassini Grand Finale: Navigating the Gap

This illustration depicts the best-known candidates in our search for life in the solar system.

Infographic illustrating water in the Solar System

The Solar System and Beyond is Awash in Water (Infographic)

This mosaic of images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft depicts fan-like structures in Saturn's tenuous F ring. Bright features are also visible near the core of the ring. Such features suggest the existence of additional objects in the F ring. The bright, discontinuous features seen near the core of the F ring are clumps of ring material that may be created by the passage of the ring's shepherding moon Prometheus. They can be seen casting narrow shadows that extend toward the bottom of the mosaic. The shadows are marked with arrows in the annotated version. From right to left in the mosaic, the blades of the "fan" appear darker than the surrounding material above the bright core of the F ring near the larger, diagonal channels created by the ring's shepherding moon Prometheus. The fans (marked "F" in the annotated version) can be seen as a series of channels within the F ring's particles that appear to have a common origin but that spread outward radially in different directions. Gravitational perturbations on the ring material by a moonlet or clump of material can create these fans. The moonlet or clump orbits more or less elliptically compared to the rest of the F ring. It is probably embedded in the ring and is causing the base of the fan channels to meet. See Multiple F-Ring 'Fans' and F Ring's Bright Core Clumps for similar observations of such fans. The diagonal streamer-channels are periodically created by the gravity of the potato-shaped moon Prometheus which is 148 kilometers (92 miles) on its longest side but is on average 86 kilometers (53 miles) across. To learn more and to watch a movie of this streamer-channel phenomenon, see Soft Collision. The images have been re-projected in this mosaic so that the F ring appears straightened rather than curved and compressed azimuthally (along the ring). This change represents a scale compression in the horizontal direction of about 33 to one which is why Prometheus looks like a bright line. Prometheus is marked "Pr" in the annotated version. This sequence of 23 images was taken over about an hour. The earliest image is on the right, and time progresses moving left in the mosaic. Each image was re-projected and placed side by side in this montage. Scale in the original images was about 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. The images were contrast enhanced and re-projected to a scale of 33 kilometers (21 miles) per pixel in the mosaic's horizontal direction and one kilometer (0.6 miles) per pixel in the mosaic's vertical direction. The single, cropped inset of the clumps included here was then magnified by a factor of two. The view in the original images looked toward the northern, unilluminated side of the rings from about 54 degrees above the ring plane. The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 16, 2009. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (808,000 miles) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 98 degrees. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

This mosaic depicts fan-like structures in Saturn's tenuous F ring.

'Fan' in the F Ring

This image of Saturn's northern hemisphere was taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 13, 2017. It is among the last images Cassini sent back to Earth.

Black and white image of Saturn's atmosphere.

Saturn: Before the Plunge

New data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest that the shape of our solar system moving through the local Milky Way galaxy looks like a bubble.

Model of the shape of our solar system

Bubble of Our Sun's Influence

Presented here is a complete set of cartographic map sheets from a high-resolution atlas of Saturn's moon Mimas. The atlas is a product of the imaging team working with NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Mimas, as imaged by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s, has a very large, distinguishing crater that makes it look like the "Death Star." As shown in this map, that crater is named Herschel. The map sheets form a three-quadrangle series covering the entire surface of Mimas at a nominal scale of 1:1,500,000. The map data were acquired by the Cassini imaging cameras. The mean radius of Mimas used for projection of the maps is 198.2 kilometers (123.2 miles). Image scale is 216.2 meters (709 feet) per pixel. The resolution of the map is 16 pixels per degree. This atlas is an update to the version released in October 2008, see , The Mimas Atlas (2008). Names for features have been approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/ . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The Mimas Atlas -- Arthur

The Mimas Atlas -- Arthur

Jets of high-density gas detected by Cassini's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph on Saturn's moon Enceladus match the locations of dust jets determined from Cassini images, labeled here with Roman numerals. The spectrograph pinpointed the locations of individual gas streams in the plume in a "stellar occultation," which involves measuring the light of a star (in this case, zeta Orionis), as it passed behind the plume from Cassini's viewpoint. The blue line in this projection shows the path of the starlight through the plume, over the south polar region of Enceladus. The instrument looked at the star across this path in the direction indicated by the short blue lines. Some of the dust jets appear to merge together in stellar occultation data. The dimming of starlight labeled "a" was caused by dust jets V and VII. The dimming of starlight marked as feature "b" may be associated with dust jet I if the jet is not perfectly vertical. Dimming of starlight labeled "c" corresponds to dust jet VI, and "d" is dust jet III, with dust jet II in between. The individual jets come from sources with an area of less than 300 by 300 meters (1,000 feet square)-- about the size of a football stadium --probably stretched out rectangularly along the tiger stripes. The new data indicate that the water molecules are blasting off from Enceladus at faster than 600 meters per second (about 1,200 miles per hour). The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph was designed and built at, and the team is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Colorado/SSI

Graphic of jets of high-density gas detected by Cassini on Enceladus

Gas and Dust Jets Match Up

This diagram depicts conditions observed by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during a flyby in Dec. 2013, when Saturn's magnetosphere was highly compressed, exposing Titan to the full force of the solar wind.

This diagram depicts conditions observed by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during a flyby in Dec. 2013, when Saturn's magnetosphere was highly compressed

Titan Observed Naked in the Solar Wind (annotated)

This illustration shows Cassini above Saturn's northern hemisphere prior to making one of its Grand Finale dives.

Illustration of Cassini over Saturn.

Cassini Over the Top (Illustration)

This synthetic aperture radar image was obtained by the Cassini spacecraft on its recent pass by Titan's south pole on Dec. 20, 2007. This portion of the (T39) swath is of the region extending from about 84 degrees south to the south pole, with a length of approximately 760 kilometers (470 miles) and width of 150 to 170 kilometers (90 to 100 miles). The polar projection of this image is at 128 pixels per degree, or approximately 351 meters per pixel (1,150 feet per pixel), and the radar illumination is from the lower left with incidence angles from about 22 to 38 degrees. This image covers the south pole of Titan, which can be seen as a region of broad smooth valleys surrounded by rugged terrain. Also seen in this image are two features interpreted as lakes, the larger of which may correspond to dark features first identified by the imaging science subsystem in June 2005 (See Land of Lakes?). Their very dark appearance in the radar image indicates that they are probably filled with liquid methane. Other apparently empty lake basins are seen elsewhere in the radar swath. Based on this swath, there appear to be fewer lakes near the south pole than seen in a typical region near the north pole (for example, see Titan's North Polar Region). Since Titan is currently in its late summer season in the southern hemisphere, this interpretation is consistent with a previously proposed theory that methane fills the lakes during the winter and evaporates during the summer, leaving them dry until the next fall. Intensity in this colorized image is proportional to how much radar brightness is returned, or more specifically, the logarithm of the radar backscatter cross-section. The colors are not a representation of what the human eye would see. The lakes, darker than the surrounding terrain, are emphasized here by tinting regions of low backscatter in blue. Radar-brighter regions are shown in tan. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. Credit: NASA/JPL

Radar Images Titan's South Pole

Watch the NASA-JPL press briefing announcing Cassini's final orbits recorded at JPL on April 4, 2017.

Video of press conference.

Grand Finale Preview Press Conference (April 4, 2017)

On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.

Saturn system with planets annotated

The Day the Earth Smiled (with planets annotated)

This graph shows the energetic ion and electron data from the Saturn orbit insertion interval on June 30 and July 1, 2004.

Saturn's Main Radiation Belt

Saturn's Main Radiation Belt

This graphic represents a possible model for mechanisms that could generate the water vapor and tiny ice particles detected by Cassini over the southern polar terrain on Enceladus. This model shows sublimation of an ammonia-water "slush" or "slurry" on the surface. Sublimation is to cause to change directly from a solid to a gas, or from a gas to a solid, without becoming a liquid. For other models being considered by scientists, see also PIA07725 and PIA07726. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

This graphic represents a possible model for mechanisms that could generate the water vapor and tiny ice particles detected by Cassini over the southern polar terrain on Enceladus.

Modeling 'Warm' Ice on Enceladus

For Cassini's next flyby of Titan on May 12, 2007, the radar instrument was originally pointing north of where it is now pointed. Due to the discovery of probable large seas on Titan, Cassini's quick-thinking team repointed the radar instrument south, so it could fly over a large, expansive dark area dubbed the "Caspian Sea." This flyby will confirm whether it is liquid-filled. This area on Titan's north pole stretches 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and is only slightly smaller than Earth's Caspian Sea. The presence of seas on Titan reinforces the idea that Titan's surface must be re-supplying methane to its atmosphere. + View Flyby Page

Artist rendition of Titan Flyby

Cassini to Confirm if 'Caspian Sea' is Liquid-Filled

This graphic illustrates Cassini's trajectory, or flight path, during the final two phases of its mission. The 20 Ring-Grazing Orbits are shown in gray; the 22 Grand Finale Orbits are shown in blue. The final partial orbit is colored orange.

This graphic illustrates Cassini's trajectory, or flight path, during the final two phases of its mission.

Final Orbits and Titan: Cassini Grand Finale (Artist's Concept)

This figure shows shifting stratospheric temperatures obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft between 2005 (left) to 2008 (right). The difference between the temperatures is shown in the middle, with red indicating warming in the stratosphere and blue indicating cooling. The most warming was observed in the northern mid-latitudes, in regions emerging from the shadow of Saturn's rings. The most cooling was observed in a collar around the south pole, as direct sunlight shifted away from that region. The changes were about 6 to 8 Kelvin (about 11 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature changes show the effect of changing seasons on the giant planet. Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004, when the planet was in the middle of a balmy southern summer with its south pole oriented towards the sun. The north pole was shrouded in winter darkness. Around August 2009, Cassini observed the equinox, when the sun shone over Saturn's equator, lighting the rings edge-on only and warming both hemispheres the same amount. That was the start of southern autumn and northern spring. The black line in the figure represents Saturn's equator and the plane of its rings. The annotated version includes color-coded temperature scales at the bottom. Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer obtained data on the changing temperatures from October 2004 to July 2009. The figures on the left and right were assembled from two subsets of the data, providing complete global coverage from pole to pole in 2005 and 2008. The data represent mean temperatures by latitude and were not dependent on longitude. The graphic uses some artistic interpretation in spreading out the latitudinal data. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., where the instrument was built. More information and images are available at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/Oxford University

This figure shows shifting stratospheric temperatures obtained by Cassini between 2005 (left) to 2008 (right)

Changing Temperatures in Saturn's stratosphere

Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. For higher resolution click here.

Diagram of Cassini

Diagram of the Cassini Spacecraft

Happy Holidays from the Planetary Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

Illustration of holiday lights and spacecraft in snowglobes.

Happy Holidays 2016 - Solar System Edition

In the decade since NASA’s Cassini delivered ESA’s Huygens probe to the hidden surface of Titan, our knowledge of Saturn’s largest moon has grown by leaps and bounds.

Infographic of Huygens at Titan

10th Anniversary of Huygens Arrival at Titan

Dive between Saturn and its rings with NASA's Cassini spacecraft in the final chapter of its mission.

360 degree video showing Cassini dive between the rings.

Cassini's Grand Finale (360 view)

This plot shows results from Cassini's ion neutral mass spectrometer and cosmic dust analyzer, obtained during the spacecraft's close approach to Enceladus on July 14, 2005.

A plot showing results from Cassini's ion neutral mass spectrometer and cosmic dust analyzer, obtained during the spacecraft's close approach to Enceladus on July 14, 2005

Water Vapor & Particles Over Enceladus

Cassini sails low over the surface of Iapetus on approach to its close encounter with the enigmatic moon on Sept. 10, 2007.

Screenshot from the 'Flight over Iapetus' movie

Flight over Iapetus

The Journey

Cassini Timeline

Timeline

Dive deep into the story of the Cassini-Huygens mission to explore the Saturnian system.

The Spacecraft

Find out how the Cassini orbiter and Huygens lander work and how we use the powerful suite of science instruments with this engaging 3D model.

Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes

A glimpse at the men and women behind the exploring machines.