NEW YORK: Talk about a parting shot! NASA’s Cassini spacecraft ends its mission in late 2017, but not before it took one more look at Saturn’s moon Dione — and sent back some stunning closeups.
Dione’s pockmarked surface looks magnificent as it hovers above the planet’s signature rings in an image taken Aug. 17. During the flyby – Cassini’s fifth of Dione – the spacecraft came within 295miles of the surface.
“They are the last we will see of this far-off world for a very long time to come,” Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., said of the images. “Right down to the last, Cassini has faithfully delivered another extraordinary set of riches. How lucky we have been.”
As far as closeups go, these images are pretty flattering – and useful. That’s because the researchers were able to take advantage of extra sunlight reflecting off the gas-giant planet to help illuminate additional features hidden in the cratered moon’s shadows.
