Videos: Four Days at Saturn + Public lecture: Cassini’s Epic Journey at Saturn

This time lapse video made by the  Cassini spacecraft shows four rotations of Saturn:

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft stared at Saturn for nearly 44 hours in April 2016 to obtain this movie showing four Saturn days.

Cassini will begin a series of dives between the planet and its rings in April 2017, building toward a dramatic end of mission — a final plunge into the planet, six months later.

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The Cassini Mission to Saturn, which was launched in 1997 and reached the ringed planet in 2004, will come to an end in September 2017 when the spacecraft will dive into the atmosphere of the gas giant.  Earl Maize, Cassini Project Manager, and Linda Spilker, Cassini Project Scientist, gave a lecture on Saturn and the Cassini mission this past week:

This public talk presented highlights of Cassini’s ambitious inquiry at Saturn and an overview of science observations in the final orbits. There was a discussion of Cassini’s exciting challenges, and promise of the final year of the mission, ultimately flying through a region where no spacecraft has ever flown before.