Saturn, named after the Roman god of agriculture, is arguably one of the most mysterious planets in our solar system having had astronomers marvel at its beauty for centuries. The planet’s spectacular set of rings are even visible with a small telescope. I remember the first night I tried out mine and how I was blown away by the sight of this magical object in the sky.

In 2004, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft reached Saturn and its moons to explore some of its fascinating secrets. The spacecraft comprised of two components namely an orbiter called Cassini and a probe called Huygens. The Huygens probe reached Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, in 2005 and the Cassini is still orbiting the planet today. Since their arrival they have streamed back images that captured the imagination of enthusiast and scientist alike.

The image above, which colour is exaggerated, was created by combining 135 pictures taken by Cassini on Sept. 15, 2006. The orbiter drifted in the giant planet’s shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. This awesome panoramic view reveals that in Saturn’s shadow, unexpected wonders appear. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn and slightly scattering sunlight. On inspecting the full image closer, left just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of what we call home- Earth.

Images:
Original full-sized image
Full-sized image with exaggerated colour
Cassini-Huygens Photo gallery

See also:
Cassini-Huygens Main page
PIA08329: In Saturn’s Shadow
Astronomy Picture of the Day October 16, 2006

This entry was posted on Friday, October 20th, 2006 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Space. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.