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The Cassini mission to Saturn has done it again, with a beautifully composed picture of Saturn's rings and its moons, captured on Sept. 17 and unveiled this week on the Cassini imaging team's website. Can you spot all four moons? The brightest of the quartet, 698-mile-wide Dione, is front and center. Saturn's biggest moon, 3,200-mile-wide Titan, lurks directly behind Dione and the rings. You should be able to spot 50-mile-wide Pandora, just beyond the rings toward the right side of the image. And the fourth moon? That's 17-mile-wide Pan, a shepherd moon that's embedded in the rings' Encke Gap, to the left of Dione.
Over the past seven years, Cassini has sent back a steady stream of spectacular images from the Saturnian system. Here's just a sampling:
- Saturnian moons merge into a quintet
- A double scoop of Saturn's moons
- It's a Saturnian moonapalooza!
- Happy holidays from Saturn's moons
- Slideshow: Cassini's greatest hits
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That's art.
Spectacular. Is there a full color version?
Does anyone else feel bad that we're born in the wrong time and wil never get to explore the galaxy?
MikeyMike, here's a color version from Unmanned Spaceflight ...
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=25587
If it's not the exact same picture, it's pretty close. Here's the full thread of messages about the Cassini imagery:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/lofiversion/index.php/t7005-50.html
Cool. Thanks, Alan!
These photographs blow my mind. To think that a mere 60 years ago mankind could only imagine these views...Thanks to miniaturization and digital compression spectacular photos such as this and the photos from Mars are now commonplace.
is that ever neat!!....I was looking away from the monitor and just caught an averted glimpse as the browser loaded...neat effect, the subconcious brain has no reference to identify the data, that is de-finitly op art!! I caught all four of the moons but the rings forced my attention as the brains wants to know what it is processing, when I looked at the picture, I recognized the rings and had to process the data to figure out what was wrong with the moons (perspective assignment)!!!!....hard to plan that one!!
I am starting to realize that I may very well see man orbit these moons within twenty years or so, there is certainly upheaval in the world's submissive stance behind nasa and our current displeasure with most things government in this country is bound to bring about an expedited time schedule. Not to make this political, more a sense that the status quo has slipped and most of recognize a greater potential to be had, as evidenced in this awesome picture of nature as we never dreamed it was......great job nasa!! Never even dreamed of such a picture!!...what's it look like in enhanced color? (that is a hint to any young aspiring space artist looking for a stunning scene to paint)....
Breathtaking photos! Classic Cassini.
Couldn't help re-looking at Titan in the background with its primeval shroud of mystery. One can't look at Titan without feeling the haunting question - Does life exist there? Will we know in our life times?
So amazingly beautiful one would think that it was drawn rather than photographed. The reasons that we have a NASA and send out probes like Cassini should be self-evident to anyone who sees this photo.
Beautiful.
The picture is astounding, but could you imagine seeing with your own eyes in realtime.
Gallelio would be stunned. I am stunned. Great job Cassini and ground crew!
And o Bummer virtually gutted NASA
Ah, the teaparty turd in the punchbowl. Crawl back under your rock.
Creedmoor, you are misinformed. Try reading up on the subject a little.
It is truly sad people feel the need to bring worthless and childish political attacks into a discussion that needs none of it. Appreciate the beauty of the picture, no matter who is minding the store.
Nope, just cut out the fat. We wouldn't want NASA to be a big fat momma's basement-dwelling slob
now thats a photograph !!!!!!!!!!!
An absolutely beautiful shot, and very well composed. The only thing that could make this scene any better would be to witness it with my own eyes. Congrats to the Cassini personnel on another outstanding photo!
A stunning photograph. Still, we should look forward to the day our race can see photographs of planets in other star systems.