Cassini’s Saturn Mission Goes Out In A Blaze Of Glory

Earl Maize (left), Cassini program manager at JPL, and Julie Webster, spacecraft operations team manager for the Cassini mission at Saturn, embrace after the Cassini spacecraft plunged into Saturn on Friday at precisely 7:55 a.m. ET.

The NASA probe that has spent the past 13 years making countless discoveries about the ringed planet and its moons was taken out of orbit and sent plunging into Saturn’s atmosphere.

(Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky/(NASA/Joel Kowsky))