The most mind-blowing space and astronomy pictures of 2017

Researchers used the robot to discover six new moons and mysterious "propeller objects" in Saturn's rings, documented a giant hexagon swirling atop the planet's north pole, photographed hydrocarbon lakes on Titan (Saturn's largest moon), and found a vast ocean of salty water - which may harbor alien life - below the icy crust of the moon Enceladus. But on September 15, 2017, the space agency crashed its precious spacecraft into the clouds of Saturn to avoid the possibility that it would crash into one of the planet's moons when it ran out of fuel. Cassini took a series of photos that NASA stitched together into one final, whole image of Saturn before it plunged to its death.