Dec 23, 2015 04:22 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its final close encounter with Enceladus, the sixth largest of Saturn's 62 known moons.

On Monday, Cassini started beaming back data and images from a flyby Saturday Dec. 19, the space agency stated in a news release. Cassini flew about 3,106 miles above the moon's surface.

Head over to NASA's official website to see a collection of raw and processed images from the mission.

"This final Enceladus flyby elicits feelings of both sadness and triumph," Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in the release. "While we're sad to have the close flybys behind us, we've placed the capstone on an incredible decade of investigating one of the most intriguing bodies in the solar system."

From now until Sept. 2017, when Cassini is on track to run out of fuel, the spacecraft will continue to orbit Enceladus at a distance more than four times its recent flyby.

"We bid a poignant goodbye to our close views of this amazing icy world," Linda Spilker, the mission's project scientist at JPL, said in the release. "Cassini has made so many breathtaking discoveries about Enceladus, yet so much more remains to be done to answer that pivotal question, 'Does this tiny ocean world harbor life?'"

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