NASA's Cassini probe just got closer to Saturn than ever before

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NASA's Cassini probe just got closer to Saturn than ever before — here's what its death spiral is revealing

Kevin Loria
Aug. 15, 2017, 4:39 PM

NASA's Cassini probe is plunging to its death. The nuclear-powered spacecraft has orbited Saturn for 13 years, and sent back hundreds of thousands of images. The photos include close-ups of the gaseous giant, its famous rings, and its enigmatic moons — including Titan, which has its own atmosphere, and icy Enceladus, which has a subsurface ocean that could conceivably harbor microbial life. To prevent Cassini from crashing into and contaminating any of those hidden oceans, the space agency has directed the craft, which is running out of fuel, onto a crash course with Saturn.

On Monday, the space probe conducted the first of its final five orbits around the planet, dipping into Saturn's atmosphere, according to NASA. It's all part of the "Grand Finale" for the $3.26-billion, 20-year mission, which will end on September 15 as the spacecraft dives to its demise and burns up like a meteor.
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These last passes will reveal new data about Saturn, its atmosphere and clouds, the materials making up its rings, and the mysterious gravity and magnetic fields of the gas planet. "It's Cassini's blaze of glory," Spilker previously told Business Insider. "It will be doing science until the very last second."
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On its next dip into Saturn's atmosphere on August 20, Cassini may be able to go even deeper. It could see the planet's northern aurora and measure the temperature of Saturn's southern polar vortex.
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