On October 10, 2013, Cassini captured a rare view of Saturn separated from it’s rings, a view that can never be seen from Earth. The image is a three-by-four mosaic of red, green, and blue filter images take from high above the equatorial plane. Click on the image to view a higher resolution version.
An overview of the Cassini spacecraft and it’s mission is outlined on the Cassini JPL NASA website.
It’s not too often that we see our world from afar but when we do it’s truly an amazing and humbling experience. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was able to get into position next to the great planet of Saturn and take a look back at Earth from 900 million miles away. The image is in color and in high resolution, Earth is nothing but a blue dot with a small white dot next to it, that white dot is the Moon of course. Saturn’s rings reflect sunlight towards the camera and against the black backdrop of outer space, it looks truly beautiful.
Cassini’s picture reminds us how tiny our home planet is in the vastness of space, and also testifies to the ingenuity of the citizens of this tiny planet to send a robotic spacecraft so far away from home to study Saturn and take a look-back photo of Earth.” Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
As NASA points out, pictures like these are very rare because Earth appears very close to the sun at that distance and trying to take a picture could ruin the camera’s sensitive electronics with that much sunlight hitting it. This is just one section of an image that will become a mosaic of Saturn’s rings. You can read the original article and see a full-resolution version of this image from NASA.
We haven’t really had the opportunity to see Saturn’s north pole, at least with any great clarity, since the last time we got close which was in 1981 when Voyager 2 was making it’s way past our solar system’s second largest planet. Thankfully, Cassini on Nov. 27, 2012 has offered up an updated and much more detailed view of the northern pole of Saturn and what they found was spectacular.
A massive vortex was discovered that spans 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) across with clouds whizzing around at 330 miles per hour. It’s like a massive hurricane, one that’s many times as large and powerful as any hurricane on Earth. What’s also interesting about “the Rose” is that we are not sure how long it has actually existed. We will have to keep an eye on this storm and see how things progress throughout the year.
For more details about Cassini and associated projects along with more amazing photos, you can head the NASA’s Cassini page.