09 September, 2017
The orbiter and lander arrived in July 2004 like wide-eyed tourists at Saturn, the realm of mystery and rings. The almost 20-year mission will come to a fiery end when Cassini plunges into Saturn's atmosphere next Friday morning and burns up, effectively ending the mission forever.
But before the craft performs its final act of science, it's been completing several loops of the rings of Saturn.
In the special episode of Space's Deepest Secrets: Cassini, Science Channel will document the 20-year mission and the months leading up to what NASA is calling the "Grand Finale" and show the images taken right before the crash as well as its other discoveries and images. NASA released the highest resolution color images yet of a part of the planet's B Ring and it gives us a fascinating window into Cassini's world. It was taken from about 47,000 miles from the ring and each pixel represents roughly two miles.
The natural-color composite image shows shades of beige and gray intermingled with off-white lines and black streaks.
The image is a mosaic of a sunlit area of Saturn's rings that lies somewhere between 61,300 and 65,600 miles from Saturn's center.
The material responsible for bestowing this color on the rings-which are mostly water ice and would otherwise appear white-is a matter of intense debate among ring scientists that will hopefully be settled by new in-situ observations before the end of Cassini's mission.
The B ring has an irregular structure that is where the ringlets are in the photo. Apparently, the borders of these ringlets get fuzzier the closer they get to Saturn.
