NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took this natural-color
portrait on July 19, 2013, which is the first image to show Saturn, its moons
and rings, plus Earth, Venus and Mars, all together. (Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
NASA has released a natural color image of Saturn from space, the first in
which Saturn, its moons and rings, and Earth, Venus and Mars, all are
visible.
The new panoramic mosaic of the majestic Saturn system taken by NASA's
Cassini spacecraft, which shows the view as it would be seen by human eyes, was
unveiled at the Newseum in Washington on Tuesday.
Cassini's imaging team processed 141 wide-angle images to create the
panorama. The image sweeps 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across Saturn and
its inner ring system, including all of Saturn's rings out to the E ring, which
is Saturn's second outermost ring. For perspective, the distance between Earth
and our moon would fit comfortably inside the span of the E ring.
"In this one magnificent view, Cassini has delivered to us a universe of
marvels," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini's imaging team lead at the Space Science
Institute in Boulder, Colo. "And it did so on a day people all over the world,
in unison, smiled in celebration at the sheer joy of being alive on a pale blue
dot."
The mosaic is part of Cassini's "Wave at Saturn" campaign, where on July 19,
people for the first time had advance notice a spacecraft was taking their
picture from planetary distances. NASA invited the public to celebrate by
finding Saturn in their part of the sky, waving at the ringed planet and sharing
pictures over the Internet.
An annotated version of the Saturn system mosaic labels points of interest.
Earth is a bright blue dot to the lower right of Saturn. Venus is a bright dot
to Saturn’s upper left. Mars also appears, as a faint red dot, above and to the
left of Venus. Seven Saturnian moons are visible, including Enceladus on the
left side of the image. Zooming in to the image reveals the moon and the icy
plume emanating from its south pole, supplying fine, powder-sized icy particles
that make up the E ring.
The E ring shines like a halo around Saturn and the inner rings. Because it
is so tenuous, it is best seen with light shining from behind it, when the tiny
particles are outlined with light because of the phenomenon of diffraction.
Scientists who focus on Saturn's rings look for patterns in optical bonanzas
like these. They use computers to increase dramatically the contrast of the
images and change the color balance, for example, to see evidence for material
tracing out the full orbits of the tiny moons Anthe and Methone for the first
time.
“This mosaic provides a remarkable amount of high-quality data on Saturn’s
diffuse rings, revealing all sorts of intriguing structures we are currently
trying to understand," said Matt Hedman, a Cassini participating scientist at
the University of Idaho in Moscow. "The E ring in particular shows patterns that
likely reflect disturbances from such diverse sources as sunlight and Enceladus’
gravity.”
Cassini does not attempt many images of Earth because the sun is so close to
our planet that an unobstructed view would damage the spacecraft's sensitive
detectors. Cassini team members looked for an opportunity when the sun would
slip behind Saturn from Cassini's point of view. A good opportunity came on July
19, when Cassini was able to capture a picture of Earth and its moon, and this
multi-image backlit panorama of the Saturn system.
"With a long, intricate dance around the Saturn system, Cassini aims to study
the Saturn system from as many angles as possible," said Linda Spilker, Cassini
project scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,
Calif. "Beyond showing us the beauty of the Ringed Planet, data like these also
improve our understanding of the history of the faint rings around Saturn and
the way disks around planets form -- clues to how our own solar system formed
around the sun."
Launched in 1997, Cassini has explored the Saturn system for more than nine
years. NASA plans to continue the mission through 2017, with the anticipation of
many more images of Saturn, its rings and moons, as well as other scientific
data.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled
the Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras. The imaging team is based at
the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
To view the image, visit:
More information about Cassini is available at:
A new version of the collage of photos shared by the public, with the Saturn
system as backdrop, is available at:
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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