As it happened: Cassini mission's grand finale

Summary

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft was destroyed at 12:55 BST (04:55 PDT) as it plunged into Saturn's atmosphere
The plan prevented it crashing into and contaminating the moons Titan or Enceladus, which could host alien microbial life
The spacecraft was torn apart and will now become part of the planet it has been studying
Cassini reached Saturn in 2004. Shortly after arrival, it released the Huygens lander to Saturn's moon Titan
The Cassini-Huygens mission has revealed seas of liquid methane on Titan and an ocean of water beneath Enceladus

Live Reporting

Tom Spender, Helen Briggs, Jonathan Amos and Paul Rincon

Playing with picturespublished at 05:36 British Summer Time 15 September 2017
There is a large community of enthusiasts out there who like to process the raw images that come back from Cassini. And they do a very impressive job. Jason Major has established quite a name for himself in this activity.
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Goodbye Cassini - Hello Saturnpublished at 05:23 British Summer Time 15 September 2017
BBC TV's flagship science programme, Horizon, has a special edition on Monday. It will recap events on Friday but also look back at the Cassini mission's many achievements.
You can have a peek at the programme in this video sequence. It recalls how the water jets emanating from Enceladus were first discovered, and how team scientists then established that there was a large body of liquid water hidden under the moon's icy exterior.
Media caption,
Why scientists are so excited about Saturn's icy moon Enceladus.
A last look at the Saturn systempublished at 05:16 British Summer Time 15 September 2017
Cassini spent many hours on Thursday downlinking the last of its images. The solid state memory will be cleared and the cameras switched off for the big plunge. Only those those instruments that can sense the planet's near-space environment, such as its magnetic field, or that can sample the chemical composition of its gases will be operating. When the data rate is a measly 27 kilobits per second, there's no point trying to feed pictures to Earth in the end phase of the mission.
So what was in the last picture show? Well, you can go look at the raw image dump here, external. But this is an important one: a view of the moon Enceladus disappearing over the northern limb of Saturn. Perhaps the next time we return to this little world with a spacecraft we will have instrumentation that can detect key markers for the presence of life.
Image source, NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SS
Image caption,
Goodbye Enceladus. We will be back
Welcomepublished at 18:45 British Summer Time 14 September 2017
Greetings earthlings and welcome to our live coverage of the Cassini spacecraft's grand finale.
At about 12:55 BST (04:55 PDT) on Friday, a 13-year mission of exploration around Saturn will come to an end, as the orbiter is destroyed in the giant planet's atmosphere. Stay tuned for updates as we count down to the plucky spacecraft's final bow.
Image source, NASA