Why Cassini Is Ending Its Life with a Kamikaze Plunge

Why Cassini Is Ending Its Life with a Kamikaze Plunge:
"...It’s the possibility of contaminating Saturn’s moons, though, that is the more interesting motivation for what NASA has been calling Cassini’s “Grand Finale.”
“Whenever NASA plans any missions, they always include plans for what we call spacecraft disposal,” said Morgan Cable, a NASA research scientist working on the Cassini mission.
Even the best sterilization methods can leave some bacterial spores behind, which can survive in space for years in a sort of hibernation.
“We have to follow that planetary protection rule of trying not to leave any evidence of Earth-based life anywhere that we’re trying to look for other types of life.”
Saturn, a gas giant, doesn’t have conditions suitable for life, so there’s no worry there.
“The worst thing would be going to say, Enceladus, or Titan, and finding life and realizing that we put it there with Cassini or one of our previous missions,” Cable said.
“‘Are we alone? ‘Is there other life in solar system?’ We want the real answer, not the ‘oops’ answer.”..."