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Cassini spacecraft’s amazing photos of Saturn, rings & moons

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

This Aug. 12, 2009 composite image made available by NASA shows Saturn in equinox seen by the approaching Cassini spacecraft. Saturn’s equinox occurs only once in about 15 Earth years.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

This Aug. 11, 2013 image made available by NASA shows Saturn and one if its moons, Titan, seen from the Cassini spacecraft. Titan’s crescent nearly encircles its disk due to the small haze particles high in its atmosphere scattering the incoming light of the distant Sun.

Until Cassini’s arrival at Saturn in 2004, humanity had never viewed Saturn up close and personal.

In all, Cassini has provided more than 453,000 pictures of Saturn, its rings and moons. The final snapshots will be coming down hours before the spacecraft’s fiery finish on Friday. Cassini will burn up like a meteor in Saturn’s sky.

“These final images are sort of like taking a last look around your house or apartment just before you move out,” said project scientist Linda Spilker of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “You walk around the downstairs, as you go upstairs, you run your fingers along the banister, you look at your old room and memories across the years come flooding back.

Click here for more images from Cassini.

“And in the same way, Cassini is taking a last look around the Saturn system, Cassini’s home for the last 13 years. And with those pictures come heartwarming memories.”

The final targets — all repeats — include big moon Titan and little moon Enceladus, one or both of them potentially harboring life; tiny moonlets embedded in Saturn’s rings; and one final color montage of Saturn and its rings.

No photos will be taken during Cassini’s final plunge through Saturn’s atmosphere. Instead, scientific instruments will sample the atmosphere and send back the data until the spacecraft goes out of control and its antenna no longer points toward Earth.

Telescopes on the ground — nearly a billion miles away — will attempt to capture the cosmic flash. But nothing will be close enough to fully record Cassini’s demise.

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