On
July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini
spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet,
seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home
planet, Earth. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI. Full image and caption
This
collage includes about 1,600 images submitted by members of the public
as part of the NASA Cassini mission's "Wave at Saturn" campaign. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI. Full image and caption
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 into
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 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, a division of
the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 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: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA17172.
A new version of the collage of photos shared by the public, with the Saturn system as backdrop, is available at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA17679.
More information about Cassini is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
Steve Mullins 720-974-5859
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
media@ciclops.org
