chance are you ’ve find out that NASA ’s Cassini deputation around Saturn will get to an end in September this year . This weekend , the spacecraft made itslast flybyof the gripping moonshine Titan as it run into the concluding phase of the mission .
This flyby , the 127th of Titan , saw Cassini come within 979 kilometers ( 608 miles ) of the moon ’s N magnetic pole . As it did so , it was busy study the open , including investigating the moon ’s lakes and sea .
As it fly past , it also snapped some final images of this flyby , the last close - up view we ’ll get of Titan for the foreseeable future . There is no survey - up military mission to Saturn or Titan plan at the minute .
" Cassini ’s up - close exploration of Titan is now behind us , but the rich volume of data the ballistic capsule has collected will fuel scientific study for decades to hail , " order Linda Spilker , the missionary post ’s project scientist at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena , California , in astatement .
All these images are crude panorama of Titan . NASA / JPL - Caltech / Space Science Institute
Titan is Saturn ’s largest moon by far , bigger than all its other moons put together , so its gravitational pulling has been used throughout the mission to vary the orbit of Cassini , enable it to investigate targets of interest group . This particular flyby put Cassini on its Grand Finale , a serial publication of swooping orbits that will take the spacecraft between Saturn and its anchor ring for the first time .
Cassini will make its first dive into this undiscovered region tomorrow , April 26 , sending back images and information to Earth the day after . But while there ’s plenty more Saturn science to come , this is the end for our geographic expedition of Titan .
Since Cassini get in at Saturn in 2004 and dropped the Huygens lander onto Titan in 2005 , we ’ve get a line that this world is the only home other than Earth with bodies of liquid known to be on its airfoil . These are in the form of liquid hydrocarbons , with the moon seemingly hostile to life as we have a go at it it , but it may have a habitable ocean under its surface .
NASA / JPL - Caltech / Space Science Institute
There will be no shortage of lamenting for Cassini when the commission number to an death on September 15 this year . Cassini will be ship dash into Saturn ’s atmosphere , to prevent it hitting one of the habitable moons and foul them as it runs out of fuel .
For Titan though , it ’s good day and goodnight . We ’ll get a last look at the moon the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. before the Cassini mission ends , on September 14 , from a much dandy space . But this is our last close - up glimpse of one of the most fascinating worlds in the Solar System .
