Earlier this week, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft began sending back the first images and science data from its final up-close flyby of Enceladus, passing by the sixth largest moon of Saturn at a distance of 3,106 miles (4,999 km) last weekend, the US space agency has revealed.
The encounter took place on Saturday, December 19 at 12:49pm EST (9:49pm PST) and marked the 22 time that Cassini had approached Enceladus during its mission. Though it will continue to monitor the moon’s activity from afar, NASA confirmed there would be no more flybys.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft paused during its final close flyby of Enceladus to focus on the icy moon’s craggy, dimly lit limb, with the planet Saturn beyond. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said that his team was experiencing “feelings of both sadness and triumph” in light of that realization. “While we’re sad to have the close flybys behind us, we’ve placed the capstone on an incredible decade of investigating one of the most intriguing bodies in the solar system,” he continued.
“We bid a poignant goodbye to our close views of this amazing icy world,” added Linda Spilker, the mission’s project scientist at JPL. “Cassini has made so many breathtaking discoveries about Enceladus, yet so much more remains to be done to answer that pivotal question, ‘Does this tiny ocean world harbor life?’”
Project made Enceladus a target in the search for extraterrestrial life
Shortly after it arrived at Saturn, Cassini detected geologic activity on the icy moon, which led NASA scientists to alter their original flight plans so they could maximize how often the probe flew past Enceladus. The spacecraft would eventually find evidence that there is a global ocean beneath the frozen crust of the surface of the moon.
During its final close flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this view featuring the nearly parallel furrows and ridges of the feature named Samarkand Sulci. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
The Cassini mission will continue through September 2017, and while the probe will continue to monitor Enceladus, future encounters will come no closer than four times the distance of the past weekend’s flyby. The mission has helped make Enceladus “one of the top future destinations for exploration and the search for signs of potential life beyond Earth,” NASA said.
On October 14, Cassini made its closest ever flyby of the moon’s north polar regions, passing by at an altitude of 1,142 miles (1,839 kilometers). Two weeks later, it made a daring deep dive into Enceladus’ plume, just 30 miles above the satellite’s south pole. Doing so enabled it to obtain the most accurate measurements ever of the plume’s composition.
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Feature Image: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft peered out over the northern territory on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, capturing this view of two different terrain types. A region of older terrain covered in craters that have been modified by geological processes is seen at right, while at left is a province of relatively craterless, and presumably more youthful, wrinkled terrain. Cassini acquired the view during its final close flyby of Enceladus, on Dec. 19, 2015. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
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