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Diving into Saturn atmosphere prevented biological contamination of moons. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

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Cassini ended its 13-year Saturn mission with a intentional plunge

Diving into Saturn atmosphere prevented biological contamination of moons

In September 2017, the Cassini spacecraft executed its Grand Finale by diving directly into Saturn's upper atmosphere, vaporising intentionally. Engineers chose this disposal path to prevent the out-of-fuel probe from accidentally crashing into and contaminating potentially habitable moons like Enceladus or Titan.

Where this comes from

NASA Science

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Tags: cassini, saturn, spacecraft

Cassini ended its 13-year Saturn mission with a intentional plunge: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Diving into Saturn atmosphere prevented biological contamination of moons. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a space fact?: Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.