Talk about a parting shot! NASA’s Cassini spacecraft ends its mission in late 2017, but not before it took one more look at Saturn’s moon Dione -- and sent back some stunning closeups.
Dione’s pockmarked surface looks magnificent as it hovers above the planet’s signature rings in an image taken Aug. 17. During the flyby – Cassini’s fifth of Dione – the spacecraft came within 295 miles of the surface.
"They are the last we will see of this far-off world for a very long time to come," Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.