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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCassini checking out the 'hood
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia17172
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.
With the sun's powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini's onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn's orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
With both Cassini's wide-angle and narrow-angle cameras aimed at Saturn, Cassini was able to capture 323 images in just over four hours. This final mosaic uses 141 of those wide-angle images. Images taken using the red, green and blue spectral filters of the wide-angle camera were combined and mosaicked together to create this natural-color view. A brightened version with contrast and color enhanced (Figure 1), a version with just the planets annotated (Figure 2), and an annotated version (Figure 3) are shown above.
This image spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across.
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Cassini checking out the 'hood (Original Post)
n2doc
Nov 2013
OP
brucefan
(1,549 posts)1. Awesome!
NealK
(1,893 posts)2. Really cool!
CFLDem
(2,083 posts)3. Makes me jealous
of the humans who will be able to see that view in real life one day.
Delphinus
(11,845 posts)4. Too true!
Belated welcome to DU!