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Cassini’s Final Image in Visible Light Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This monochrome photo — taken on Sept. 14, 2017, at a distance of about 394,000 miles (634,000 kilometers) from Saturn — is the last picture ever snapped by Cassini’s imaging cameras. It shows the spot where, a day later, the spacecraft plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere. […]

Cassini captured this view of Saturn’s rings on Sept. 13, 2017. The final photos taken by NASA’s Cassini Saturn orbiter have begun coming down to Earth, and you can see them all. Cassini is clearing its memory ahead of its dive into Saturn’s atmosphere early Friday morning (Sept. 15), a suicide plunge that will bring the […]

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk likes reusability. With 16 successful rocket landings  under its belt, along with two reused rockets and one reused Dragon spacecraft, Musk’s rocket company has made giant leaps in reusable booster technology for sure. But an amazing new video from the company, which Musk has touted as a mere “blooper reel,” shows just […]

New research suggests that the asteroid Vesta could host ice beneath its surface. Large smooth patches of terrain suggest that impacts could have brought up buried ice that melted, flattening the surface. The giant asteroid Vesta may possess ice buried under its surface, a new study finds. Vesta is the second-largest asteroid in the solar […]

A new video lays out the basics of what the Air Force’s robotic X-37B space plane is doing on its latest mystery mission, which lifted off last week. Most aspects of X-37B missions are classified, so the new video — which was produced by Boeing, the vehicle’s maker — doesn’t go into detail. But it […]

On the morning of Sept. 15, 2017, NASA will end the Cassini spacecraft’s mission by sending it into Saturn’s atmosphere (depicted in the inset). With the SkySafari 5 app, you can fly alongside Cassini from its launch in 1997 to its final moments. In the hours before its fatal plunge, the spacecraft will drop toward […]

Artist’s illustration of Saturn’s suicide plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will work hard to the very end. Cassini will plummet into Saturn’s atmosphere early Friday morning (Sept. 15), ending its epic 13-year stint at the ringed planet with a bang. But before that happens, the probe will snap its dying […]

This image from the radar instrument aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the large hydrocarbon sea Ligeia Mare on Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan. On Friday (Sept. 15), NASA’s Cassini mission will come to a dramatic end, burning up like a meteor high in Saturn’s atmosphere and concluding the spacecraft’s daring “Grand Finale.” This final goodbye was […]

NASA’s retro-style poster for the end of its Cassini Saturn mission drew inspiration from “Whaam!,” a famous diptych created in 1963 by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. JET PROPULSION LAB, Calif. — The first spacecraft to orbit Saturn will never be available for a museum to preserve and display. Now in the final hours of a collision […]

J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy Just hours after J.J. Abrams was confirmed as returning to direct/co-write/produce Stars Wars: Episode IX, Lucasfilm has announced that the release date has been pushed back from May 24, 2019 to December 20, 2019. Walt Disney Pictures’ live-action Aladdin will take over that May 24 date. No reason was given […]

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, north of Corpus Christi, as a Category 4 storm on Aug. 25, 2017. It was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. since Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Harvey was also the first hurricane to hit the Texas coast since Hurricane Ike in 2008. After making landfall, Harvey weakened […]

Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, as seen by NASA’s Cassini probe. Water vapor and other materials from a subsurface ocean jet into space from “tiger stripe” fractures near Enceladus’ south pole. The upcoming suicide plunge of NASA’s Cassini Saturn probe is an act of noble self-sacrifice . Cassini is running out of fuel, so the end of […]

After examining Saturn from up close for 13 years, the Cassini spacecraft is ending its long career with a boom — and there’s an important reason why. Friday morning (Sept. 15), Cassini will complete the orbital pirouettes of its seven-year Solstice Mission and complete a self-destructing descent into Saturn’s atmosphere. This fierce ending is dramatic […]