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Deep Dive: Cassini Grand Finale (Artist's Concept)

Illustration of spacecraft at Saturn.
Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Published: March 23, 2016

Artist's concept of Cassini orbiter diving between Saturn's inntermost rings and cloud tops.

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This still is from a short computer-animated film that highlights Cassini's accomplishments and Saturn and reveals the science-packed final orbits between April and September 2017. Download the vi...
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Ring Gap
Ring Gap
This diagram created by Cassini's mission planning team shows how navigators use Titan flybys to shape Cassini's orbits.
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Illustration of Cassini's orbits around Saturn and also the orbit of Titan.
Ring-Grazing and Grand Finale Orbits with Titan
+ Brightening Adiri -- Unannotated Images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show changes caused by methane rain in the bright Adiri region near the equator of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Altho...
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Images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show changes caused by methane rain in the bright Adiri region near the equator of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.
Brightening Adiri -- Annotated
This false-color image of Saturn was constructed by combining three images at three different infrared wavelengths. The image at the upper left was taken at 1.3 microns, where both Saturn and its ...
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False-color image of Saturn
Saturn's Kaleidoscope of Color
This still is from a short computer-animated film that highlights Cassini's accomplishments and Saturn and reveals the science-packed final orbits between April and September 2017.
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Cassini at Saturn
Orbit Insertion
Saturn's clouds and hazes at three different levels in the atmosphere are depicted in the image on the right, as observed by the visual infrared mapping spectrometer on the Cassini spacecraft. In ...
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Saturn's clouds and hazes at three different levels in the atmosphere are depicted in the image on the right. The image on the left shows only the upperatmosphere above the 1-bar level.
A 3-D View of Saturn's Clouds and Hazes
This graphic shows the trajectory for the Cassini spacecraft during its flyby of the icy moon Enceladus on Oct. 9, 2008. At closet approach Cassini will be 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the surface...
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This graphic shows the trajectory for the Cassini spacecraft during its flyby of the icy moon Enceladus on Oct. 9, 2008.
Cassini's E5 Trajectory -- Oct. 9, 2008
This still is from a short computer-animated film that highlights Cassini's accomplishments and Saturn and reveals the science-packed final orbits between April and September 2017.
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Titan
Titan Sunlight Glint
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. ...
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Mimas -- Accolon
The Mimas Atlas -- Accolon
Dawn's futuristic, hyper-efficient ion propulsion system allows Dawn to go into orbit around two different solar system bodies, a first for any spacecraft.
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Infographic with diagram of ion propulsion system
Anatomy of an Ion Engine
Jean Dominique Cassini (1625-1712) discovered Saturn's moons Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys, and Dione. In 1675, Cassini discovered that Saturn's rings are separated into two parts by a gap. The gap is now ...
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Jean Dominique Cassini
Jean Dominique Cassini
To create the first global, topographic map of Saturn's moon Titan, scientists analyzed data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft and a mathematical process called splining. This method effectively uses ...
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Global, topographic map of Saturn's moon Titan
Two Views of Titan's Topography
On Oct. 31, 2008, during the second close flyby of Enceladus of the month, the cameras and other optical remote sensing instruments will be front and center, imaging the fractures that slash across...
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Artist's rendition of the Oct. 31, 2008 Enceladus flyby
Enceladus Flyby - Oct. 31, 2008
This artist's rendering shows a cross-section of the surface and subsurface of Saturn's moon Titan, with a possible model for the structure of underground liquid reservoirs there.
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This artist's rendering shows a cross-section of the surface and subsurface of Saturn's moon Titan, with a possible model for the structure of underground liquid reservoirs there.
Titan's Subsurface Reservoirs -- Annotated
Version B of the asteroids installment of our solar system poster series.
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A movie-style asteroid poster.
Asteroids Poster - Version B
This is a computer-rendered image of Cassini during the Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI) maneuver, just after the main engine has begun firing. The spacecraft is moving out of the plane of the page and...
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Saturn Orbit Insertion
Saturn Orbit Insertion
The plot shows the type of data the magnetometer measures. These data were taken during Saturn orbit insertion. Cassini is measuring the three components of the magnetic field (the strength of t...
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Type of data collected by Cassini's MAG instrument
MAG Data -- Saturn Orbit Insertion
Temperature changes mapped with Cassini's composite and infrared spectrometer throughout Saturn's main rings show the ring temperatures decreasing with the increase of the Sun-spacecraft-ring angle...
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This image shows temperature changes mapped with Cassini's composite and infrared spectrometer throughout Saturn's main rings
Slower Spinning Rings #2
This graphic shows the average temperatures of various destinations in our solar system. (Planets not to scale)
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Thermometer with planets lined up next to it from hot to cold.
Solar System Temperatures
Details of the circular feature, which scientists think is an ice volcano, which could be a source of methane in Titan's atmosphere, show up at wavelengths larger than 1.3 microns (a micron is one-...
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Six panels of a possible volcano feature taken in six infrared windows
Titan Volcano in Several Infrared Wavelengths
+ Related Interactive: Anatomy of a Flyby This graphic shows the trajectory for the Cassini spacecraft during its close brush with the icy outpost of Enceladus on March 12, 2008. At closet appro...
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Graphic of Cassini trajectory -- Enceladus flyby, March 12, 2008
Enceladus Flyby - March 12, 2008
This graphic shows the trajectory for the Cassini spacecraft during its flyby of the icy moon Enceladus on Aug. 11, 2008. At closet approach Cassini will be 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the surfac...
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Graphic showing the trajectory for the Cassini spacecraft during its flyby of the icy moon Enceladus on Aug. 11, 2008.
Enceladus Flyby Trajectory – Aug. 11, 2008
This illustration shows NASA’s Cassini spacecraft about to make one of its dives between Saturn and its innermost rings as part of the mission's Grand Finale. 
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Illustration of Cassini diving between the rings of Saturn.
Cassini Grand Finale Dive (Illustration)
The Cassini mission entered its second extended mission, called the Cassini Solstice Mission, in September 2010. This extension enables scientists to study seasonal and other long-term weather chan...
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Cassini Solstice Mission artwork
Cassini Solstice Mission
This temperature map of Saturn's moon Iapetus is constructed from observations of Iapetus's infrared heat radiation taken with the Cassini composite infrared spectrometer instrument during the Dec....
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Grid showing Iapetus temperatures in various colors.
Iapetus Temperature Map

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