Just days ago, the Cassini spacecraft that brought us remarkable and truly beautiful images of Saturn crashed into the ringed planet, and was essentially vaporized.
The last message was received yesterday (here's a snippet of it taken from a Washington Post article by Sarah Kaplan):
“The signal from the spacecraft is gone and within the next 45 seconds so will be the spacecraft,” program manager Earl Maize reported from mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, just after 4:55 a.m. local time. “This has been an incredible mission, an incredible spacecraft, and you're all an incredible team.”
Cassini was launched 13 years ago, and despite it's sad ending yesterday, it has to be viewed as a huge success.
It was from Cassini that the most famous and iconic images of the beautiful ringed planet were taken, and our knowledge of Saturn was expanded tremendously as a result of all of these images, as well as the measurements and other information taken from Cassini. Most of the information that our scientists know about Saturn and it's moon were as a result of Cassini.
However, Cassini ran out of gas. The crash was planned, and before it went down, it went by Titan to take a few more pictures, and then apparently used Titan's orbit to kind of slingshot it's way back towards Saturn. Even as it went down, it remained useful, with the antenna pointed towards Earth, and relaying as much information as possible before finally dying.
What a success, and a testament not only to NASA and it's capabilities, but to it's continued importance and hopes for more successful space missions for the future!
The Cassini Spacecraft Just Crashed Into Saturn, ending a successful 20-Year Mission by Sarah Kaplan, September 15, 2017:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/09/15/the-cassini-spacecraft-just-crashed-into-saturn/?utm_term=.66d73e9cce30
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