Close-range remote sensing of Saturn's rings during Cassini's ring grazing orbits and grand finale

With its 13-year mission at Saturn now complete, Cassini takes its place as the most spectacularly successful interplanetary mission in the history of NASA.  It its final 10 months, from December 2016 to September 2017, Cassini transformed itself into a whole new mission with its Ring Grazing Orbits and Grand Finale, including 20 close flybys off the outer edge of Saturn's rings and 22 passes between the rings and the cloud tops of the planet, culminating into a final plunge into the depths of Saturn.  Detailed new data obtained during these maneuvers has brought Saturn's rings, its clouds, its small inner moons, and more into sharper focus than ever before.  In this lecture, we will focus on new results from the close passes of the main rings.

Speaker: Matthew Tiscareno, SETI Institute