The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini

The Cassini-Huygens unmanned spacecraft was launched in 1997. It was named after two astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens. The spacecraft was active in space for nearly 20 years. It was the first spacecraft to ever orbit Saturn, the second largest planet in mass and size and the sixth in distance from the sun.
Cassini revealed that Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, contains an earth-like world with rain, rivers, lakes and seas. Liquid methane is present. It discovered unknown moons in orbit around Saturn, as Methone, Pallene, Polydeuces, Daphnis, Anthe and Aegaeon. Enceladus is a frozen moon, that shoots out icy jets. A large global ocean is present beneath the icy cover. A series of discoveries were made relating to Saturn’s rings. Vertical structures exist in the rings.
Cassini orbited Saturn, since June 30, 2004, until September 15, 2017, when it plunged into Saturn’s upper atmosphere, to destroy the spacecraft. This method was used to prevent contamination to any moons of Saturn, that offer potential habitability.
Cassini took more than 453,000 photos of Saturn. NASA selected the 100 greatest visuals and turned it into this 110-page ebook, which is free to download for iBooks, Kindles and other ebook readers or just as a PDF. This book will be honoured as the first chapter in the history of how humans reached for the stars and discovered life beyond Earth.