NASA's Cassini spacecraft reaches its final flyby past Saturn's moon Dione on Monday. The closest approach of the spacecraft was within 295 miles of the icy moon's surface at 2:33 p.m. EDT. Fresh images from the flyby are expected to arrive in the coming days.
The flyby is the 5th encounter with the moon during Cassini's exploration of Saturn since 2004.
The spacecraft is set to depart Saturn's equatorial plane - where moon flybys occur most frequently - to begin a year-long setup of the mission's daring final year, where it will repeatedly dive through the space between Saturn and its rings, NDTV reports.
"This will be our last chance to see Dione up close for many years to come. Cassini has provided insights into this icy moon's mysteries, along with a rich data set and a host of new questions for scientists to ponder," said Scott Edgington, Cassini mission deputy project scientist at JPL, Space Daily reports.
The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency, under NASA's science Mission Directorate in Washington, and managed by The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where the orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, according to NASA's press release.
