New photos from venerable spacecraft show off incredible details in Saturn’s rings
We've never seen Saturn looking like this before. New images beamed back from the Cassini spacecraft show Saturn's distinctive rings in unprecedented detail.
While the rings, as a whole, look like perfectly smooth disks from a distance, when viewed from close range, the smaller-scale bits of ice, dust and rock that form the rings can be spotted.
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The photos reveal waves in the outer rings caused by the motions of some of Saturn's moons and clumps of material within the rings. Some of the high-resolution images also harbor views of tiny "moonlets" in the planet's rings, according to NASA.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
"These close views represent the opening of an entirely new window onto Saturn's rings, and over the next few months we look forward to even more exciting data as we train our cameras on other parts of the rings closer to the planet," Cassini scientist Matthew Tiscareno said in a statement.
Cassini is currently in an orbit that brings it past the outer parts of the rings every week.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
The spacecraft — which has been studying Saturn and its moons from close range since its arrival in 2004 — has been in its "ring grazing" orbit around the planet since November 2016. It is expected to continue in this orbit through early April.
Once those orbits are finished, the real fun can begin.
On April 26, Cassini is expected to start diving between Saturn and its inner-most ring — a daring orbit never attempted before.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Mission managers are putting the craft into this risky orbit because the Cassini mission is coming to its end in September, when the probe will be purposefully sent into Saturn's thick atmosphere, where it will disintegrate.
But for now, savor these portraits of Saturn as they're sent back from the intrepid probe as it makes the most of its final months exploring the large world.
