Striking Images From The Cassini Spacecraft’s 20-Year Journey to Saturn

The Cassini spacecraft has started its final five passes over Saturn as it nears the end of its 20-year run.

The Cassini was launched from Cape Canaveral in 1997 and was a joint venture between US, European and Italian space agencies. It entered Saturn’s orbit after a seven-year journey on July 1, 2004. Since then, the spacecraft has sent countless data and hundreds of thousands of images of the sixth planet back to researchers back on Earth.

Due to the probe’s dwindling fuel supply, scientists have decided to end it’s operation to avoid the possibility of future collisions with Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus as it becomes uncontrollable. Starting Sept 11., Cassini will head towards its ‘grand finale‘ and dive into Saturn’s atmosphere Sept. 15.

Take a look at some of the out of this world  photos the spacecraft has taken throughout the years.

This view obtained Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Oct. 17, 2012, looks toward the non-illuminated side of Saturn’s rings from about 19 degrees below the ring plane. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

This view shows Saturn’s northern hemisphere in 2016, as that part of the planet nears its northern hemisphere summer solstice in May 2017. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

The three mosaics shown here were composed with data from Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer taken during the last three Titan flybys, on Oct. 28, 2005 (left image), Dec. 26, 2005 (middle image), and Jan. 15, 2006 (right image). (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Saturn’s rings obscure part of Titan’s colorful visage. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ring plane. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

Taken in 2013, this false-color image from NASA’s Cassini mission highlights the storms at Saturn’s north pole.This image was taken with Cassini’s wide-angle camera using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

Image of the spinning vortex of Saturn’s north polar storm obtained on Nov. 27,2012. This image is among the first sunlit views of Saturn’s north pole captured by Cassini’s imaging cameras. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

The brightest body in the solar system, Enceladus, is contrasted here against Titan’s smoggy, golden murk. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing side of Rhea. North on Rhea is up and rotated 35 degrees to the right. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 16, 2011, at a distance of approximately 1.1 million miles from Rhea and 1.5 million miles from Titan. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Enceladus. North is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 13, 2017. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

This panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

Saturn’s softly glowing rings shine in scattered sunlight. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft zoomed by Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus on Oct. 14, 2015, capturing this stunning image of the moon’s north pole. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

This image shows grooves in the southern part of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The image was created using synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) data acquired by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 6, 2011. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

This image of the northern polar region of Saturn shows both the aurora and underlying atmosphere, seen at two different wavelengths of infrared light as captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The aurora image was taken in the near-infrared on Nov. 10, 2006. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 0.3 degrees below the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 29, 2015. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spied details on the pockmarked surface of Saturn’s moon Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across) during a moderately close flyby on Dec. 6, 2015. This view looks towards the anti-Saturn side of Prometheus. North on Prometheus is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 44 degrees below the ring plane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 29, 2013. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 4 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 28, 2016. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

View from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft looks toward Saturn’s icy moon Dione, with giant Saturn and its rings in the background, just prior to the mission’s final close approach to the moon on August 17, 2015. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)