Swan song and death dive
The planet Saturn, viewed by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its 2009 equinox. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. In 1997, almost 20 years and some tens of billions of kilometres ago, an interplanetary probe - Cassini - left the confines of Earth and launched itself on a mission to the outer solar system. Its eventual destination was the gas giant planet Saturn and is retinue of moons and rings, but it went the long way round: first two loops of Earth's nearest neighbour - the inner planet Venus - followed by a close encounter with Earth and it's moon. These encounters were planned to increase the craft's velocity and haste its passage through the asteroid belt towards Jupiter - the king of planets. Jupiter's gravitational heft then slingshotted the probe, at speed, towards its eventual goal - the ringed majesty of Saturn. Cassini attained orbit around Saturn on July 1 2004, almost seven years after its departure. The space
