Death Dive to Saturn

On September 15, 2017, at the Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the United States. Hundreds of teammates from the Cassini-Huygens mission have gathered for a final farewell to the probe that has explored Saturn, its sixty-two moons and its illustrious rings for nearly thirteen years. Arriving in 2004 in the Saturnian system (after its launch seven years earlier), Cassini completed its race. In a final crossing, she must collect data on an unknown territory, located between the planet and its rings. A final somersault. Before disintegrating in the gas giant's atmosphere, the probe must survive twenty-two dives, which Earl Maize, the mission director, describes as "seven seconds of terror every seven days."