At 7:55AM US Eastern Time on September 15, 2017 mission control officially lost contact with the Cassini Spacecraft as it plunged into Saturn's atmosphere to end its journey. I didn't come to appreciate the role of Cassini in my life until much more recently, and I bitterly regret not learning earlier. The Cassini mission brought to life impossible dreams of alien worlds close to home and likely played a part in our education whether you realize it or not. This is the least I could do in memory of the craft.

On October 15, 1997 (not long before I was born) at 4:43AM Eastern Time, the Cassini Spacecraft with the Huygens probe launched on its planned mission to Saturn expected to end 11 years later in 2008. After launch, the craft first headed to Venus for two flybys and then to Earth for two flybys before catapulting out towards the Asteroid Belt and outer Solar System.

Before approaching Saturn in 2004, the year before the Cassini team announced that data using radio waves from Cassini provided more evidence to Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

In February of 2004 Cassini transmitted to Earth one of the first of many high resolution pictures of Saturn. Over the next month began study of Saturn itself, especially properties of Saturn's famous rings and of cloud dynamics in Saturn's atmosphere.

As 2004 continued Cassini made a rapid series of observations and discoveries. In April Cassini sighted the moons Prometheus and Pandora, originally discovered during the Voyager 1 mission, moons that were chaotic and exercised gravitational influence on one of Saturn's rings. In May and June of 2004, Cassini officially entered Saturn's system and conducted a flyby of the moon Phoebe. In July Cassini takes the first picture of the moon Titan that began to force scientists to reanalyze beliefs about the moon.

In August of 2004 the Cassini team announces the discovery of two new moons for Saturn, soon named Methone and Pallene. In October a second flyby of Titan is conducted revealing a dynamic, confusing surface, showing not just a rock floating but a whole world. A month later the Huygene probe splits off of Cassini to approach the surface of Titan.

On Christmas Eve of 2004 Cassini released the Huygens Probe to begin its journey to the surface of Titan, a few days later on New Year's Eve, Cassini does a flyby of the moon Iapetus; a world made of mostly ice.

On January 14th of 2005 Huygens descends into Titan where it began transmitting data soon after. The probe also broadcasted the first pictures from inside Titan's atmosphere and on the surface.

Later in the year Cassini made a series of huge discoveries. First that in a flyby of the moon Enceladus it was discovered that the moon had an atmosphere, which was a discovery that helped place Enceladus as one of the most likely candidates for life in our solar system.

Cassini in a flyby of Titan was able to detect some of the molecules in Titan's atmosphere, discovering many carbon based molecules, which are considered one of the prerequisites to life.

On May 10th, Cassini discovered a new moon inside Saturn's "A" ring; the moon was named Daphnis.

Cassini later confirms the presence of hydrocarbons at Titan's polar regions. Over the next couple years the probe conducts numerous flybys of moons and other bodies collecting data all of the way.

On May 28, Cassini carried out its 43rd flyby of Titan, which was the official end to Cassini's original mission, but NASA announced an extension to Cassini's mandate, coined the Cassini Equinox Mission in order to observe Saturn during its equinox.

From 2008 to 2010 Cassini carried on from mapping water plumes from Enceladus to confirming lakes of methane on Titan. In November of 2010, several instruments began to fail, NASA placed the spacecraft on standby mode and by the end of the month full functionality had returned. This signalled the end of Equinox and the beginning of Cassini's final mission: Solstice.

Over the next just under seven years, Cassini conducted over 150 orbits including flybys of many of the Moons, including in 2015, when Cassini confirmed the presence of cryovolcanoes on Enceladus, essentially plumes of water that are considered evidence of geothermal activity on the moon, greatly increasing chances the moon harbors microbial life.

Despite all of the success, the end was coming. Cassini did not have enough fuel to escape its orbit of Saturn so the choice was made to fly Cassini into Saturn's atmosphere rather than risk contaminating moons that potentially harbor life.

On September 15th of the year 2017 at 5:31AM Central US time, Cassini began atmospheric entry into Saturn with thrusters firing at 10% capacity.

At 6:55 AM Cassini gifted us one final transmission containing scientific data sampling Saturn's atmosphere. Then silence.

Cassini fundamentally changed the discussions we have not only of life in the universe but of life in our very solar system. Cassini was a constant companion that I was barely aware of in my education that I owe so much to. Thanks to that little spacecraft I will have a lifelong love of astronomy and an understanding that it is so much more than just rocks in the vacuum of space. These are worlds. Worlds full of possibilities and stories just waiting to be explored.

So I guess this is goodbye old friend, thank you for everything you have given us.