Cassini spacecraft crashes into Saturn (photos)

Associated Press (ap.org); Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Fake: image presented as "photo of Saturn from Cassini" (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

(April 21, 2017) "That last kiss goodbye," as project manager Earl Maize calls it, will push Cassini onto a path no spacecraft has gone before - into the gap between Saturn and its rings. It's treacherous territory. A particle from the rings - even as small as a speck of sand - could cripple Cassini, given its velocity (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP).

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Farewell, Cassini: Saturn spacecraft makes fiery, final dive

Fake image of Cassini taking selfie with Saturn

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - NASA's Cassini spacecraft disintegrated in the skies above Saturn on Friday in a final, fateful blaze of cosmic glory, following a remarkable journey of 20 years.

Confirmation of Cassini's expected demise came about 7:55 am EDT. That's when radio signals from the spacecraft -- its last scientific gifts to Earth -- came to an abrupt halt. The radio waves went flat, and the spacecraft fell silent.

 
Cassini actually burned up like a meteor 83 minutes earlier as it dove through Saturn's atmosphere, becoming one with the giant gas planet it set out in 1997 to explore. But it took that long for the news to reach Earth a billion miles away.
 

Where's Gwen Stefani to talk about astrology, Saturn, and symbolism when you need her?

• PHOTOS: Flight Director Julie Webster gets emotional at mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory after confirmation of Cassini's demise Friday, Sept. 15, 2017, in Pasadena, California. Cassini disintegrated in the skies above Saturn this morning.

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The only spacecraft to ever orbit Saturn, Cassini showed us the planet, its rings and moons up close in all their splendor. Perhaps most tantalizing, ocean worlds were unveiled on the moons Enceladus and Titan, which could possibly harbor life.

Dutiful to the end, the Cassini snapped its last photos Thursday and sampled Saturn's atmosphere Friday morning as it made its final plunge. It was over in a minute or two. Program manager Earl Maize made the official pronouncement:

"This has been an incredible mission, an incredible spacecraft and you're all an incredible team," Maize said. "I'm going to call this the end of mission." Flight controllers wearing matching purple shirts stood and embraced and shook hands. Project scientist Linda Spilker also had a purple handkerchief to wipe away tears.

"It felt so much like losing a friend," she told reporters a couple of hours later. More than 1,500 people, many of them past and present team members, had gathered at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for what was described as both a vigil and celebration. Even more congregated at nearby California Institute of Technology, which runs the lab for NASA. More