NASA’s Cassini  Saturn Orbiter has been looping closer and closer to the surface, ending its focus on Saturn’s rings and now concentrating on its surface. The tan orbit above started in Nov. 2016 and will end April 2017 and then it will start its last orbit, ending in Sept. 2017 with a crash landing, shooting photos the whole way.

 

Cassini’s imaging cameras acquired these latest views on Dec. 2 and 3, about two days before the first ring-grazing approach to the planet. Future passes will include images from near closest approach, including some of the closest-ever views of the outer rings and small moons that orbit there.

"This is it, the beginning of the end of our historic exploration of Saturn. Let these images -- and those to come -- remind you that we’ve lived a bold and daring adventure around the solar system’s most magnificent planet," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

You won’t be seeing Saturn this close, even with your 16-inch Meade LX200. This is what Saturn looks like up close and personal.before sending it skimming past the outer edges of the planet's main rings.

The next pass by the rings' outer edges is planned for Dec. 11. The ring-grazing orbits will continue until April 22, when the last close flyby of Saturn's moon Titan will once again reshape Cassini's flight path. With that encounter, Cassini will begin its Grand Finale, leaping over the rings and making the first of 22 plunges through the 1,500-mile-wide (2,400-kilometer) gap between Saturn and its innermost ring on April 26.

Read more: HutchNews.com and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory