Courtesy THE TRIBUNE

Journey into unknown

$3.9-billion project helped understandseasonal changes on SaturnCassini found global ocean on moon Enceladus, giving a push to the theory of life outside EarthFound a hexagon-shaped pattern on north pole and moon Titan’s resemblance to a primordial Earth4,50,000 images and 635 GB of dataproduced over 13-year mission1997 Spacecraft launched2004 Began probing Saturn, moons2008 Completes four-year mission2017 Plunges into Saturn

US space agency NASA received the final signal from its Cassini spacecraft on Friday, ending a groundbreaking 13-year Saturn mission with a meteor-like plunge into the planet’s atmosphere, transmitting data until the final moment.

Cassini, the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, ended its mission at 11.55 GMT, shortly after it lost contact with Earth as it entered the gas giant’s crushing atmosphere at 1,13,000 km per hour, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

The end of Cassini’s odyssey, which began with its launch in 1997 and a seven-year journey to the ringed planet, was met with applause, hugs and tears.

“Farewell Cassini. On this eve, in fiery death, Saturn & you are one. VIP (Vaporise In Peace): 2004-2017,” astrophysicist Neil Tyson said.

Cassini’s final transmissions are expected to include unprecedented data from the atmosphere’s upper fringe, about 1,915 km above Saturn’s cloud tops. The data took 86 minutes to reach NASA antennas in Australia.

Cassini’s final dive ended a mission that gave scientists a ringside seat to the sixth planet from the Sun. The craft’s discoveries included seasonal changes on Saturn, a hexagon-shaped pattern on the north pole and the moon Titan’s resemblance to a primordial Earth. Cassini also found a global ocean on the moon Enceladus, with ice plumes spouting from its surface. Enceladus has become a promising lead in the search for places where life could exist outside Earth.

Cassini is a cooperative project between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, and was launched in 1997. Since it was running low on fuel, NASA crashed it into Saturn to avoid any chance the spacecraft could someday collide with and contaminate Titan, Enceladus or another moon that has the potential for indigenous microbial life. — Reuters