Here Are The First Stunning Pictures Sent From Cassini's First Dive Through Saturn's Rings

Sophia Nasr/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
Scientists just got their first peek into the space between Saturn and its rings. And it's incredibly beautiful.

Last Wednesday, the NASA space probe Cassini made the first of twenty-two scheduled dives through the rings around the planet of Saturn.

No human-made object had ever reached so far into those whirling bands of ice and dust particles.

Here Are The First Stunning Pictures Sent From Cassini's First Dive Through Saturn's Rings

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Cassini was traveling at a speed of 77,000 mph through regions that were thick with potentially destructive particles. It was made to using its dish-shaped antenna as a shield, to prevent any communication with Earth during the dive.

Here Are The First Stunning Pictures Sent From Cassini's First Dive Through Saturn's Rings

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Here Are The First Stunning Pictures Sent From Cassini's First Dive Through Saturn's Rings

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
All day, scientists were anxiously awaiting confirmation that their courageous tiny space robot had made it through.

Not long before midnight Pacific time, the Deep Space Network (which is a group of telescopes which communicate with distant objects in space) managed to pick up Cassini's far-off signal.

Here Are The First Stunning Pictures Sent From Cassini's First Dive Through Saturn's Rings

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
As data began streaming a billion miles back to Earth, all people at ground control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, cheered massively. Cassini had made it through the gap and emerged on the safe side.

In September, the spacecraft's last dive will now be directed straight into Saturn itself, and the probe will be forever lost. But until Cassini's 'grand finale', we can be sure to anticipate some intriguingly beautiful images accompanied by some fascinating science.

The amazing pictures from Cassini's latest dive are being posted on NASA's website directly as they stream in. Here are some of them:

Here Are The First Stunning Pictures Sent From Cassini's First Dive Through Saturn's Rings