The Cassini space probe has been taking risky dives through Saturn’s rings and sweeping past close to the planet ahead of its deliberate destruction in September this year.
Its impending inevitable demise means NASA’s happy to take risks.
Risks which include getting close enough to the cluster of ice and dust that forms Saturn’s iconic rings to get the first good look at its small moon, Pan.
It’s just 30km wide and helps ‘shepherd’ the rings into a distinctive gap.
“Pan in mind-blowing detail with its unmistakeable accretionary equatorial bulge,” tweeted the head of imaging for the Cassini mission, Carolyn Porco.
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Exactly where Pan comes from or how it was made is an ongoing matter of debate. It was only discovered in 1990 after a re-examination of photos from the Voyager missions.
Are they the leftover shards of a larger body which have since collected ring rubble and grown?
VIDEO CLIP: Saturn’s moon is a weird shape | Perth Now
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