For more than a decade, Cassini’s Saturn photos turned scientific research into contemporary art

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is expected to descend, in a dramatic fashion, into Saturn’s atmosphere on Friday (Sept 15). It has been orbiting the ringed planet for more than a decade.

Cassini did quite a bit of work during its cosmic tenure, including collecting crucial information about the chemical makeup of Saturn and its moons, some of which might be capable of supporting life. But beyond the data, many of its images are also visually striking, evoking revered Japanese minimalist photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto with commanding lines and stark chiaroscuro.

Rendered primarily in black and white due to technical limitations, Cassini’s images combine the mesmerizing abstractions of the Hubble Space telescope with the immediacy of dispatches from the Mars Curiosity Rover. The gallery-worthy selection below offers both tangibility and (literal) other-worldliness: The viewer can finally see what Saturn’s rings are made of—but what looks like a single speck might be as big a truck in reality.