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 Watch Mission Saturn Friday, September 15 9/8C on National Geographic. 
 
 Before its fatal rendezvous with Saturn’s flaxen clouds early Friday morning, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft delivered one last set of postcards from the planet’s edge. 
 
 It’s a little bit like a farewell collage: In these raw, unprocessed images, the hazy moon Titan gleams, the ice moon Enceladus creates a cosmic grin, the giant planet shines, and its iconic rings fill the spacecraft's field of view. 
 
 As new images stream back to Earth over the next few hours, mission managers expect to also see a small moonlet nicknamed Peggy gliding among the planet's enormous A ring. 
 
 “We’ve been watching since 2012 to see if Peggy might break free of the rings and become a moon in her own right,” says Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker. “So we’re going to take a last look, see what Peggy is up to.” 
 
 Saturn 101 How did the rings around Saturn form? How many moons does the planet have? See stunning NASA images of the gas giant studied by Christian Huygens and Giovanni Cassini. 
 
 It’s easy to understand why the team chose these final targets. They are among the most evocative and puzzling members of the Saturn system, which Cassini has spent the last 13 years exploring. Over that time, it has snapped nearly half a million pictures. 
 
 And now, with just a few short hours remaining before heat and pressure tear Cassini apart at approximately 4:55 a.m. PT, it makes sense to visit some of its old friends for the last time. 
 
 “We’re taking our final picture postcards of the Saturn system, looking at our favorite targets, to put these images in our Cassini scrap book,” Spilker says. NASA is expected to release more refined, processed versions of these pictures on Friday morning. 
 
 Titan, shrouded in a thick tangerine haze, is bigger than the planet Mercury. Its surface is covered with oily lakes and seas that had only been hypotheticals until Cassini arrived and peeled back the cloudy shroud concealing the moon’s eerily Earth-like surface. 
 
 Now, thanks to the spacecraft’s close examinations, we know that Titan is among the best places to look for life in the solar system. 
 
 “I suspect this parting image, seared permanently into our memories, will carry many of us through long meetings and sleepless nights until our next robotic explorer is safely on its way back to Titan,” Johns Hopkins University’s Sarah Hörst says of Cassini’s farewell glance at the enticing moon. 
 
 The same is true of Saturn’s smaller, icy moon Enceladus. When Cassini zipped by that moon in 2005, it spotted geysers of saltwater erupting from the south pole. Though there had been long-ago predictions of such activity, no one was prepared for just how spectacular the frosty fountains can be. 
 
 In the intervening years, Cassini revealed that a global sea sloshes beneath Enceladus’s icy rind, and it contains all the ingredients necessary for life as we know it. 
 
 Or, perhaps, as we don’t know it. 
 
 Here is Enceladus setting, with all the animation frames aligned on Enceladus. pic.twitter.com/1JfJ0FWino — Emily Lakdawalla (@elakdawalla) September 15, 2017 
 
 It’s because of these two moons that Cassini cannot be left at large in the Saturn system. Its fuel reserves are low, and scientists don’t want to risk contaminating one of these two potentially life-bearing worlds. 
 
 “An uncontrolled spacecraft either had to be well outside of Saturn—way, way outside—or inside,” says Cassini program manager Earl Maize. 
 
 So, as Cassini bids farewell to scientists on Earth, it will do so with a final bit of poignancy. 
 
 Among its last images will be a view of the site at which it will dip its toes into Saturn’s atmosphere, diving deeper as it gazes toward Earth and delivers data until it streaks into nothingness. 

 This Feb. 17, 2005 image made available by NASA shows plumes of water ice and vapor from the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The activity is understood to originate from the moon's subsurface... (Associated Press) 
 
 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's Cassini spacecraft at Saturn closed in on its fiery finish early Friday, following a remarkable journey of 20 years. 
 
 Cassini was on course to plunge through Saturn's atmosphere and vaporize like a meteor. Flight controllers at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory expect one last burst of scientific data from Cassini, before the radio waves go flat — and the spacecraft falls silent. 
 
 While saddened like everyone else, program manager Earl Maize said he felt great pride and couldn't have asked for more from "such an incredible machine." 
 
 The only spacecraft to ever orbit Saturn, Cassini showed us the planet, its rings and moons up close in all their glory. Perhaps most tantalizing, ocean worlds were unveiled by Cassini and its hitchhiking companion, the Huygens lander, on the moons Enceladus and Titan, which could possibly harbor life. 
 
 "We've left the world informed but still wondering," Maize said earlier this week. "We've got to go back. We know it." 
 
 Cassini was dutiful into the final hours, taking one last batch of pictures before its final job: sampling the atmosphere at the gas giant and spewing the data back to Earth. 
 
 The spacecraft was expected to tumble out of control while plummeting at 76,000 mph (122,000 kph). Project officials invited ground telescopes to look for Cassini's last-gasp flash, but weren't hopeful it would be spotted from a billion miles away. 
 
 Confirmation that Cassini had burned up was expected just before 8 a.m. EDT. It takes 83 minutes for a signal from the spacecraft to reach Earth. 
 
 This Grand Finale, as NASA calls it, came about as Cassini's fuel tank started getting low after 13 years exploring the planet. Scientists wanted to prevent Cassini from crashing into Enceladus or Titan — and contaminating those pristine worlds. And so in April, Cassini was directed into the previously unexplored gap between Saturn's cloud tops and the rings. Twenty-two times, Cassini entered the gap and came out again. The last time was last week. 
 
 Maize said all the staff would be on hand "as our faithful traveler from Earth makes its final goodbye." Their farewells already said, team members planned to raise their glasses in a final salute. 
 
 The leader of Cassini's imaging team, Carolyn Porco, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, was so involved with the mission for so long that now, "I consider it the start of life, part two." 
 
 Cassini departed Earth in 1997 and arrived at the solar system's second largest planet in 2004. The European Huygens landed on big moon Titan in 2005. Nothing from Earth has landed farther. 
 
 In all, Cassini collected more than 453,000 images and traveled 4.9 billion miles. It was an international endeavor, with 27 nations taking part. The final price tag was $3.9 billion. 
 
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 Online: 
 
 NASA: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/
– Cassini is no more. NASA, and the world, are saying goodbye to the Cassini spacecraft Friday morning after it burned up over Saturn as planned. Cassini plunged through the planet's atmosphere and vaporized like a meteor, ending a remarkable journey of 20 years, per the AP. "Our @CassiniSaturn spacecraft is now one with the planet it studied for so long," declared NASA in a tweet. "The rest is science." While saddened like everyone else, program manager Earl Maize said he felt great pride and couldn't have asked for more from "such an incredible machine." The only spacecraft to ever orbit Saturn, Cassini showed us the planet, its rings, and moons up close in all their glory. (National Geographic rounds up some of its last photos.) Perhaps most tantalizing, ocean worlds were unveiled by Cassini and its hitchhiking companion, the Huygens lander, on the moons Enceladus and Titan, which could possibly harbor life. "We've left the world informed but still wondering," Maize said earlier this week. "We've got to go back. We know it."