By Mary O’KEEFE

Cassini is beginning its final hours exploring Saturn before its final plunge into the planet it has called home for about 13 years.

On Friday, Cassini is expected to end its mission at 4:55 a.m. (PDT). Cassini has completed 293 obits of Saturn, 162 moon flybys, 127 Titan [moon] flybys and 23 flybys of Enceladus. It has taken 453,048 images, discovered two oceans, one on Titan and one on Enceladus, and named/discovered six moons.

“We won’t watch it burn up, it will slowly turn away from us,” said Earl Maize, Cassini program manager at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

CVW will be at JPL through Friday to keep its readers updated on Cassini’s grand finale. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and online at www.cvweekly.com.

For more information and images on Cassini, go to saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/grandfinale.

  Mary Okeefe