NASA's Cassini spacecraft is about to commit suicide on Saturn next week

In the coming week, the Cassini spacecraft will fly through Saturn's atmosphere and crash into the planet's surface after 13 years of discovering its giant planet and moons.

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NASA's $ 3.3 billion Cassini unmanned probe, began to explore Saturn and the moons of this giant planet in 2004. During that time, it flew around the system. Saturn to capture and send to Earth more than 450,000 photos.

When Cassini's fuel is about to run out, the ship's ultimate scientific task is to commit suicide by plunging through Saturn's atmosphere.

Today, September 11, Cassini will receive a gravity push from the Great Moon Titan and begin the journey to collide with Saturn. And at about 3 pm on September 14, Cassini will take the last picture, after which he will make the journey to death. In the process, Cassini remained in contact with the Earth.

At about 5.30 pm on September 15, Cassini will begin to fly through the clouds in the top of Saturn's atmosphere. The ship will slow down, heat up and begin to dive when friction with air increases.

Cassini will catch fire and turn into a fireball through the sky of Saturn. Even in these last moments, Cassini still performed his mission. It will adjust to the Earth and transmit data for as long as possible.

Radio discs in Australia will receive the final signal from Cassini around 6:55 am the next morning. Cassini will then fly for 83 minutes and the onboard system will turn off permanently.

On October 15, 1997, Cassini left Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA and arrived on Saturn on July 1, 2004. It has sent impressive images of Saturn and more than 60 moons of this planet.

Cassini's most important task is to drop the Huygens landing device into Titan - the second largest moon in the solar system, covered by dense nitrogen atmosphere, obscuring lakes and sea surfaces.

Later, Cassini also discovered huge geysers popping up from the southernmost cracks of Enceladus, the tiny frozen ice moon containing a large ocean hidden beneath.

Thus, the researchers determined that Titan and Enceladus were considered one of the most likely places to find the most alien life in the solar system. This is also the reason why Cassini cannot continue to orbit around Saturn because it is difficult to control the risk of collisions with Titan and Enceladus satellites.