This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

cassini hurricane

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been observing Saturn since 2004, but mission control has been careful not to get as well close to the ringed planet for fear of damaging the probe. At present, Cassini is nearly out of fuel, and it'south fourth dimension to take some risks. Cassini began altering its trajectory early this week for the "G Finale," a series of orbits that will take the spacecraft closer to Saturn than ever before. The outset images from the One thousand Finale take been sent back to NASA, and they're stunning. They're likewise just the start — Cassini has 21 more close orbits planned.

Cassini fabricated one last close pass of Saturn's moon Titan recently, which sent information technology off on a trajectory that allowed it to pass between Saturn and the innermost ring. The first such orbit was completed late Wednesday and early Th. NASA live streamed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's mission command room as the team waited on the probe to send back its data. The first unprocessed images were received right on time, and now we've got a number of really impressive shots to drool over.

As information technology pigeon through the gap, Cassini came within 1,900 miles (three,000 kilometers) of Saturn's atmosphere. The gap between the rings and Saturn's cloud layers is just about ane,500 miles (2,000 kilometers), and this is all happening more a billion miles away. Information technology took careful planning, but it'due south paying off. The first swoop allowed NASA scientists to get an unprecedented view of the planet, and the images are reportedly fifty-fifty better than the team had hoped.

The image higher up shows off the incredible "behemothic hurricane" in Saturn's atmosphere upward at the due north pole. This hexagon-shaped storm has been spied from afar, simply at present nosotros've gotten a closer expect at the deject formations effectually it. NASA is specially interested in a formation dubbed "little car," that runs around the perimeter of the hexagon (below). The center of the tempest is calm, just little car moves at more than 300 miles per hour.

cassini images

Farther south, Cassini spotted some unexpected detail in the clouds. The wisps of low-cal above expect a bit similar electrical activeness, but are in fact giant blobs of ammonia floating 93 miles (150 kilometers) above the primary cloud layer. Upwardly close, they probably look a lot similar the h2o vapor clouds we have here on Earth.

Cassini will brand some other swoop by Saturn early next week. The mission will come up to an end on September 15th when Cassini finally spirals into Saturn's atmosphere. Information technology'll exist sending data dorsum for every bit long every bit possible before it's swallowed up.