NASA Then & Now | The Planetary Society

Left image:

Pioneer 11, the first robotic home probe to come back throughout Saturn, took two footage of the ringed planet on August 29, 1979. These pictures have been then blended and synthesized to offer the image you see proper right here. Pioneer 11 launched on April 6, 1973, with a mission to test the picture voltaic wind, cosmic rays, the asteroid belt, and the environment spherical Jupiter and Saturn. It effectively completed its mission and transmitted its last little little bit of science data to NASA in 1995. Now, it continues on its trajectory into interstellar home following after its predecessor, Pioneer 10. Led by Carl Sagan, NASA licensed a mission to affix a message to the exteriors of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft: the famed Pioneer Plaques. These golden plaques perform a greeting and invitation for aliens who would possibly finally come all through these spacecraft as they sail by means of their picture voltaic methods.

Correct image:

The Cassini spacecraft snapped this beautiful {photograph} of Saturn on January 2, 2010. This natural-color view is a composite of pictures taken in seen mild with the spacecraft’s digital digital camera. The image was then processed to brighten the rings on the night side of the planet to further clearly reveal their choices.

On Sept. 15, 2017, the Cassini spacecraft plunged into Saturn’s setting, breaking up and turning into part of the planet itself. This self-destructive maneuver was used to take care of the spacecraft from contaminating Saturn’s moons, a number of of which seem to harbor substances for all instances. The Cassini mission is a cooperative mission of NASA, ESA (the European Space Firm), and the Italian Space Firm — all of which are plowing by means of the mountain of data that was collected in the middle of the spacecraft’s 13 years in orbit throughout the planet.