LONDON: NASA has released a series of stunning images taken during the Cassini spacecraft’s last close flyby of Saturn’s moon Dione.
The images show a pockmarked landscape looming below the spacecraft. Cassini passed 295 miles above Dione’s surface at 2:33 p.m. ET on Aug. 17, its fifth close encounter with Saturn’s icy moon. The spacecraft, which has been exploring Saturn and its moons since 2004, made its closest-ever Dione flyby in Dec. 2011 when it passed within 60 miles of the moon’s surface.
“I am moved, as I know everyone else is, looking at these exquisite images of Dione’s surface and crescent, and knowing that they are the last we will see of this far-off world for a very long time to come,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, in a statement on the NASA website. “Right down to the last, Cassini has faithfully delivered another extraordinary set of riches. How lucky we have been.”
