thenatureofmind

A Few Last Words On The Best Spacecraft of Our Lives, Before It Dies

Space has a funny way of making us feel both incredibly small yet infinitely lucky for being part of such a vast cosmic sorority. Of course, humans have barely scratched the surface of the final frontier—we’ve never even sent people beyond the Moon. While many uncrewed spacecraft have done an incredible job of revealing our solar neighborhood to us, honestly, none did it better than NASA’s Cassini probe. After exploring Saturn for 13 years, on September 15th at 4:55am PDT, the probe will plunge itself into the planet’s atmosphere, becoming one with the very object of its fascination.

A Few Last Words On The Best Spacecraft of Our Lives, Before It Dies

Cassini Just Sent Back Closest Ever Images Of Saturn, And They're Incredible

NASA's Cassini probe is plunging to its death. The nuclear-powered spacecraft has orbited Saturn for 13 years, and sent back hundreds of thousands of images. The photos include close-ups of the gaseous giant, its famous rings, and its enigmatic moons - including Titan, which has its own atmosphere, and icy Enceladus, which has a subsurface ocean that could conceivably harbour microbial life.

Cassini Just Sent Back Closest Ever Images Of Saturn, And They're Incredible

NASA: The Galactic Center (All wavelengths)

Venus at the Edge

Apollo 17 at Shorty Crater

In the Shadow of Saturn's Rings

NASA: NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge

21st Century M101

NASA: Orion Nebula: The Hubble View

High Energy Stereoscopic System II

The H.E.S.S. II telescope is a cherenkov telescope, designed to detect gamma rays - photons with over 100 billion times the energy of visible light - and actually requires the atmosphere to operate. As the gamma rays impact the upper atmosphere they produce air showers of high-energy particles.

High Energy Stereoscopic System II.