NASA's Cassini spacecraft has recently sent back some snaps which it has taken recently of a new orbit from Saturn. The snaps were taken from a close-up distance. The spacecraft took the images from a new ring-grazing orbit around the planet which it entered recently.

According to CBCNEWS, the spacecraft started its discovery over Saturn since 2004, Later, Cassini was given an extension to its original 2004 mission till 2010. That Solstice Mission allowed scientists to study seasonal changes on the planet. It also provided a new "pale blue dot" image of Earth at that time.

As per a recent revelation by NASA, the spacecraft took the snap with a wide-angle camera on December 2, 2016. The picture was captured at a distance of about 400,000 miles (640,000 kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 95 miles per pixel.

The orbit seems to be situated in Saturn's northern hemisphere and it also showcases rings as viewed in the snap with four different spectral filters. Each filter is sensitive to different wavelengths of light and reveals clouds and hazes at different altitudes.

This snap is among the first instances which will definitely give the scientists an opportunity to closely study about this orbit. Saturn's rings and the 'moonlets' hiding in the planet's rings making the mission all the more important for scientists. The spacecraft will complete its next orbit on December 11.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. It started in 2004 and is still evolving around various orbits of 2016.

"This is it, the beginning of the end of our historic exploration of Saturn. Let these images -- and those to come -- remind you that we've lived a bold and daring adventure around the solar system's most magnificent planet," Carolyn Porco, the lead person of Cassini imaging team stated.

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