Transmitting from the Mojave Wilderness in Joshua Tree, California, now is the time for desert oracle radio, the voice of the desert.

Night has fallen on the American desert, and that means it is time for Desert Oracle Radio

And it's a much cooler night

Than we have been able to recently enjoy

Summer is almost gone

You can leave the windows open at night again without waking up crying.

That's always nice.

And at the Goldstone Deep Space Antenna Station, located in a lonesome and quiet bowl in the mountains, midway between

Barstow and Badwater.

There is some

sadness tonight, but there's also

pride and joy because one of

the greatest space

science missions and

our brief history of exploring

the solar system came to an end on this very morning.

At 455 a.m. Mojave time, that's when contact was lost with the Cassini spacecraft.

As it plunged as planned into the churning atmosphere of Saturn.

Goldstone is one of three deep space antenna stations spread around our planet, placed

120 degrees apart.

As the world turns, the signal from Cassini passed over from one antenna station to the next set and quiet open space here in the California desert and west of Madrid and southwest of the Australian capital, Canberra.

These isolated antenna complexes take in a steady stream of transmissions

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