Cassini threaded the ~4,800 km gap of the Cassini Division between the bright B and A rings dozens of times, timing each ring-plane crossing to pass through the thinnest, least-populated part of the gap to avoid ice and rock debris.
- Ring crossing — the spacecraft's orbit is tilted so its path pierces the ring plane exactly inside the gap on every pass.
- Titan landing — the Huygens probe separated from Cassini and parachuted through Titan's thick nitrogen haze, landing on a surface with liquid methane/ethane lakes on 14 January 2005 — the only landing ever made on a moon of the outer Solar System.
- Enceladus flyby — Cassini flew directly through the water-ice geysers erupting from Enceladus's south pole, sampling the plume and finding evidence of a subsurface ocean.