These images of Cassini’s final moments are breathtaking

The Cassini space mission has come to its highly-anticipated end after 13 years circling Saturn, and Nasa has released images of its final journey.

The spacecraft, which launched in 1997 and arrived at the ringed planet in 2004, took its final plunge through Saturn’s atmosphere at 77,000mph.

Here is an artist’s impression of the probe breaking down into a fiery meteor as it zooms through the atmosphere.

This is one of the last pictures sent by Cassini on September 13. It shows Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, setting behind the planet.

“But we take comfort knowing that every time we look up at Saturn in the night sky, part of Cassini will be there, too.”