Space-Geek Saturnalia

As the Cassini mission to Saturn ends, its lead imaging scientist recalls her favorite photographs and moments

- Stav Ziv

A SPECTACULAR SPACE exploration mission will conclude with a dramatic death. The Cassini spacecraft will self-destruct by plunging into Saturn’s atmosphere, ultimately burning up and disintegrating. The planned mid-September dive will be the final farewell for a nearly three decade-long collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. It’s been good while it lasted, Saturn.

The Cassini spacecraft launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on October 15, 1997, and spent seven years en route to its target, Saturn. It entered orbit around the ringed planet in 2004 for what was intended as a four-year mission, but was twice extended for a total run of 13 years, or nearly 20 if you count the journey there.

Cassini completed the first in-depth reconnaissance of Saturn, its moons and its rings. When the mission dropped the Huygens probe on Titan, it was the first to land on the moon of a planet other than Earth. There it discovered rain, rivers, lakes and seas. Cassini also found the first evidence of extraterrestrial hydrothermal activity on the moon Enceladus, where it also observed erupting geysers. Its detailed observations of Saturn’s rings could help scientists understand how the planets in our solar system formed.

On the eve of the mission’s expiration, Newsweek spoke with Carolyn Porco—the leader of the imaging science team on the Cassini mission, who worked as an imaging scientist on the Voyager missions in the 1980s—about the stunning revelations and visual record of the historic flight.

What was it like when you were preparing for the Cassini mission?