Top five amazing discoveries by Cassini at Saturn

NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn is one of the most ambitious efforts in planetary space exploration. It is a joint endeavor of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian space agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI).

Launched in 1997, this spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn in 2004 and since then it has been studying the huge planet, its rings, and its magnetic field.

The mission comes to an end in 2017. Let's take a look at some amazing discoveries made by NASA's Cassini at Saturn:  

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has successfully made the first close dive past the outer edges of Saturn's rings on December 4, 2016.

The spacecraft, which began its penultimate mission phase on November 30, crossed through the plane of Saturn's rings on the same day at 5:09 a.m. PST (8:09 a.m. EST) at a distance of approximately 91,000 kilometres above the planet's cloud tops, NASA said.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a daring close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus in October this year, passing 30 miles (49 kilometers) just above the moon's south polar region.

According to NASA, the flyby took place at approximately 8:22 a.m. PDT (11:22 a.m. EDT) on Wednesday, October 28.

Scientists said the spacecraft was in good health after the Enceladus flyby and images are anticipated in next 24 to 48 hours.

NASA has released yet another stunning image of one of Saturn's small moons captured by its Cassini spacecraft – Hyperion.

The image that shows Hyperion orbiting the planet in a chaotic manner was captured by the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on August 22, 2016 in green light.

As per NASA, Hyperion's spin axis has a chaotic orientation in time, meaning that it is essentially impossible to predict how the moon will be spinning in the future.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft orbiting the Saturn spotted a dramatic change in color of the hexagonal north pole of the planet. The pictures were captured in between the time period of four years – 2012 and 2016 that reveal the striking change in color of the north pole.

Scientists have indicated that change in weather pattern may be one of the reasons behind this but they are still investing the root cause of this color change. The image clearly shows how the Saturn’s hexagonal north with a bluish tinge has changed in golden color within a time frame of four years.  

NASA's Cassini has captured an ethereal orb-like glow that can be seen on Saturn's B ring.

The 'glow' is the result of an "opposition surge", which makes the area on the rings appear extra bright.

This means that the sun is directly behind the observer looking toward the rings. The particular geometry of this observation makes the point in the rings appear much, much brighter than would otherwise be expected.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini wide-angle camera on June 26, 2016.