NASA Just Published the World’s Coolest Pictures of Saturn

All new images and video of the gas giant Saturn have rolled in from NASA this week giving the world an unprecedented look at its surface and rings. The agency released multimedia, including GIFs, from its Cassini spacecraft on Aug. 26 and distributed it to all of its social media channels.

NASA took to Twitter to show an amazing video of Cassini diving between Saturn’s rings.

Happening now: we’re about to dive right between Saturn and its rings. Learn more: https://t.co/TSA7uQe4KS #SaturnSaturday #GrandFinale pic.twitter.com/uwFnQgcfT0

— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) August 26, 2017

Using GIFs on both Facebook and Twitter, the agency tweeted an up-close-and-personal look at the rings in greater detail, which allows the viewer to get a quicker glance at what is really happening, second-by-second.

It didn’t take long for NASA to post some amazing pictures to Instagram. The caption takes note of Saturn’s icy rings, as well as the darker side of the gas giant being illuminated by its own reflection.

Our Cassini spacecraft gazes across the icy rings of Saturn toward the icy moon Tethys, whose night side is illuminated by Saturnshine, or sunlight reflected by the planet. Tethys was on the far side of Saturn with respect to Cassini here; an observer looking upward from the moon’s surface toward Cassini would see Saturn’s illuminated disk filling the sky. This image was taken in visible light on May 13, 2017. Now 20 years since launching from Earth, and after 13 years orbiting the ringed planet and its moons, our Cassini mission is in its ‘Grand Finale’ leading to September 15, when the mission will end with a purposeful plunge into Saturn this year in order to protect and preserve the planet’s moons for future exploration – especially the potentially habitable Enceladus. The Cassini spacecraft recently entered new territory in this final mission phase, embarking on a set of ultra-close passes through Saturn’s upper atmosphere with its final five orbits around the planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #cassini #saturn #clouds #spaceexploration #solarsystem #science #astronomy #picoftheday #planet

A post shared by NASA (@nasa) on Aug 23, 2017 at 11:11am PDT

After launching over two decades ago, Cassini has spent the last 13 years floating around Saturn. Pictures from Cassini will soon stop emerging later this year as the spacecraft has a scheduled date of impact on September 15th, thus ending its mission.

What do you think about the new images and the way NASA strategically promoted them on its social accounts? Let us know what you think in the comments below!