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Credit & Copyright: Cassini Imaging Team,
ISS,
JPL,
NASA,
ESA,
S. Van Vuuren et al.;
Music: Adagio for Strings (NY Philharmonic)
Explanation:
What would it look like to approach the grand planet Saturn?
One doesn't have to just imagine -- the
Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004,
recording thousands of images along the way, and
hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit.
Some of Cassini's early images have been digitally tweaked, cropped, and compiled into the
featured inspiring video
which is part of a larger
IMAX movie project named
In Saturn's Rings.
In the concluding sequence,
Saturn
looms increasingly large on approach as
cloudy Titan swoops below.
With Saturn
whirling around in the background,
Cassini is next depicted flying over
Mimas, with large
Herschel Crater clearly visible.
Saturn's majestic rings then take over the show as Cassini crosses Saturn's
thin ring plane.
Dark shadows of the ring appear on
Saturn itself.
Finally, the enigmatic ice-geyser moon
Enceladus appears in the
distance and then is approached just as the video clip ends.
After more than a decade of exploration and discovery,
the Cassini spacecraft ran low on fuel in 2017 was directed to
enter Saturn's atmosphere,
where it surely melted.
Music: Adagio for Strings (NY Philharmonic)
APOD's main NASA site is
moving :
From apod.nasa.gov to
science.nasa.gov/apod
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Saturn - Enceladus
Publications with words: Saturn - Enceladus
See also:
- APOD: 2026 June 16 Á Moons, Rings, Shadows, Clouds: Saturn Cassini
- APOD: 2026 June 1 Á Saturn at Night
- APOD: 2026 May 6 Á The Retrograde Dance of Saturn and Neptune
- Crescent Enceladus
- APOD: 2025 October 5 Á A Long Storm System on Saturn
- APOD: 2025 November 16 Á Crossing Saturns Ring Plane
- APOD: 2025 September 25 Á Saturn Opposite the Sun