Most people think that many millions of years ago, Saturn didn’t have rings at all. Instead, it had a big moon moving around it. Eventually, the moon burst and broke into pieces.
As Cassini’s titanic mission comes to an end, we need to start thinking ahead. A combined mission to explore Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus would be a good place to start.
An illustration of Cassini as it plunges into Saturn’s atmosphere.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Cassini space probe discovered liquid lakes, poisonous gases and the basic elements of life on Saturn’s moon, Titan.
Cassini makes the first radio occultation of Saturn’s rings producing this simulated image with green for particles smaller than 5cm and purple where particles are larger.
NASA/JPL
The Cassini space probe took us up close and through the beautiful rings of Saturn. It captured some amazing images, and even the sound of the rings during its mission.
A Cassini portrait of five of Saturn’s moons. Janus (179km across) is on the far left, Pandora (81km across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring, Enceladus (504km across) is centre, Rhea (1,528km), is bisected by the right edge of the image and the smaller moon Mimas (396km) is seen beyond Rhea also on the right side of the image.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
With only days to go before NASA’s Cassini space probe ends its two-decade mission to explore Saturn, what has it revealed about the ringed planet, the second largest in our solar system?