NASA Just Released A Video Showing Exactly What Cassini Saw During Its 'First Fantastic Dive' Over Saturn

In late April, NASA's Cassini spacecraft began a series of potentially risky dives, or "ring crossings," between Saturn and its innermost rings of ice. Many of the new images it beamed back looked small, drab, and grainy, yet they represented the closest-ever views of Saturn's stormy cloud tops.

The new images are just a taste of the data that NASA has scooped up (and will continue to get) by flying its $3.26 billion mission into uncharted territory.

Now the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released a brand-new video that shows precisely where, when, and how the spacecraft filmed the extraordinary string of images during its "first fantastic dive".