Cassini’s last hurrah has been so bittersweet: On the one hand, it marks the end of a 20-year-long journey to explore Saturn and its moons. But the Grand Finale has also featured some of the most spectacular shots of the gas giant and its moons ever taken. It’s a complex cocktail of emotions.
Image: NASA
Today, the intrepid orbiter sent back some truly stellar pics of the planet’s most unusual feature: The raging hexagonal storm on its North Pole. As Gizmodo’s Maddie Stone has previously noted, the region contains at its centre a “2000km-wide hurricane“, swirling beautifully into oblivion. That hurricane on steroids is surrounded by a hexagonal jet streams, which give the entire north pole a unique geometric appearance.
Here’s the hexagon, up close and personal:
Image: NASA
Here it is again, but like, slightly different:
Image: NASA
OK, last one, I promise:
Image: NASA
Cassini is currently in the process of completing a ring-plane crossing in its 11th Grand Finale orbit, a series of orbits that send the spacecraft diving between the gas giant and its rings. We sure will miss Cassini’s updates after it plunges itself into Saturn’s atmosphere on September 15. Until then, we’ll take all the snap shots we can get.