{"id":14168,"date":"2017-11-26T23:27:30","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T15:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/cassinis-farewell-to-saturn\/"},"modified":"2017-11-26T23:27:30","modified_gmt":"2017-11-26T15:27:30","slug":"cassinis-farewell-to-saturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/cassinis-farewell-to-saturn\/","title":{"rendered":"Cassini\u2019s farewell to Saturn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cassini\u2019s wide-angle camera recorded 80 images in just over two hours on Sept. 13 for a final full mosaic of Saturn. This view includes 42 of those images taken in red, green and blue spectral filters to create a natural color mosaic. Six of Saturn\u2019s moons \u2014 Enceladus, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Pandora and Prometheus \u2014 make a faint appearance in this image. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Space Science Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two days before its final plunge into Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft turned its camera toward the ringed world to take a series of images for a color mosaic, capturing a last evocative close-up until a new mission reaches the planet.<\/p>\n

Scientists assembled the natural color mosaic from 42 wide-angle snapshots taken Sept. 13 by Cassini\u2019s camera. The NASA-built spacecraft, developed in partnership with the European Space Agency, dived into Saturn\u2019s atmosphere Sept. 15 to end a nearly 20-year mission.<\/p>\n

The probe was running low on fuel, and NASA officials wanted to make sure they did not lose control of the spacecraft before the mission ended.<\/p>\n

Cassini took nearly a half-million images during its mission, which included more than 13 years in orbit around Saturn, a tour that repeatedly took the probe by the moons Titan and Enceladus, two places scientists are eager to send another spacecraft in the search for microbial life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all too easy to get used to receiving new images from the Saturn system on a daily basis, seeing new sights, watching things change,\u201d said Elizabeth Turtle, an imaging team associate at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. \u201cIt was hard to say goodbye, but how lucky we were to be able to see it all through Cassini\u2019s eyes!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 37 years, Voyager 1\u2019s last view of Saturn has been, for me, one of the most evocative images ever taken in the exploration of the solar system,\u201d said Carolyn Porco, former Voyager imaging team member and Cassini\u2019s imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. \u201cIn a similar vein, this \u2018Farewell to Saturn\u2019 will forevermore serve as a reminder of the dramatic conclusion to that wondrous time humankind spent in intimate study of our Sun\u2019s most iconic planetary system.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Cassini\u2019s end, there are no more spacecraft operating at Saturn, and no new missions to the planet have been approved. But NASA is currently considering proposals for a future probe to explore Enceladus or Titan that could launch around 2025.<\/p>\n

The moons Prometheus, Pandora, Janus, Epimetheus, Mimas and Enceladus make an appearance in Cassini\u2019s final Saturn mosaic, along with the planet\u2019s famous rings and several background stars.<\/p>\n

A brightened version of the mosaic better shows the moons.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cassini\u2019s wide-angle camera recorded 80 images in just over two hours on Sept. 13 for a final full mosaic of Saturn. This view includes 42 of those images taken in red, green and blue spectral filters to create a natural color mosaic. Six of Saturn\u2019s moons \u2014 Enceladus, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Pandora and Prometheus \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2394,1183,1561,1562],"class_list":["post-14168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cassini","tag-jet-propulsion-laboratory","tag-planetary-science","tag-saturn"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}