Earth Looks Teeny-Tiny In These New Images Taken From Saturn

[Buster's Uncle]

Earth Looks Teeny-Tiny In These New Images Taken From Saturn
Business Insider
By Jennifer Welsh 4 hours ago






Back in July, the Earth posed for a celestial shot and us earthlings were encouraged to "Wave at Saturn."

NASA's Cassini spacecraft was ready to click a cosmic shot of Earth from far beyond Saturn. This is only the third time in history we've gotten this chance to take a picture from this far out in our solar system.

The image was taken from nearly 900 million miles away. In the image, Saturn is backlit from the sun, which illuminates its rings. The spacecraft usually can't face this way, because the sun's rays would damage its cameras.

Cassini took the image from about 746,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) away from Saturn. Each pixel that makes up the planet is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) wide.

The resulting huge image was stitched together from 141 smaller shots. It took about four hours to take all the images. According to NASA, the image below spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across.



saturn earth moon  NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI


See (and zoom in on) the original image at NASA, where they've also provided more information about the planet's rings.

What looks like a non-existent speck in the original image can be blown up to see the few pixels that are the Earth. The pixels coming from the planets have actually been brightened by a factor of 8 1/2 compared to Saturn's luminance to make them more visible:



Earth and moon  NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI


Actually, if you zoom in enough and look really closely, it looks like you can see the individual pixel that is the light reflected off the Moon:



earth and moon zoom  NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI


In this other picture, from the same photoshoot, the Earth and Moon can be seen clearly, though they are still just small bright dots:



earth and moon alone  NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

These versions of the images from Cassini are a fair bit better than earlier mock-ups of the shot, created by amateurs using raw images from NASA's website.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/earth-looks-teeny-tiny-images-165956230.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Saturn, Earth Shine in Amazing New Photo by NASA Probe
SPACE.com
By Megan Gannon, News Editor 2 hours ago



Saturn eclipses the Sun, as seen from the Cassini–Huygens space probe. The Cassini spacecraft's onboard cameras acquired a panoramic mosaic of Saturn that allows scientists to see details in the rings as they are backlit by the sun. This image spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across.  credit: NASA cassini space probe



A NASA spacecraft has revealed an unprecedented view of Saturn from space, showing the entire gas giant backlit by the sun with several of its moons and all but one of its rings, as Earth, Venus and Mars all appear as pinpricks light in the background.

The spectacular image, unveiled Tuesday (Nov. 12), is actually a mosaic of 141 wide-angle images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft taken in natural color, which mimics how human eyes might see the ringed planet. Stretching 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across, the panorama captures all of Saturn's rings up to the ethereal E ring, the second outermost one.

The pictures that make up the mosaic were snapped on July 19, 2013 — the same day that Cassini took advantage of a rare opportunity to photograph Earth without interference from the sun, which was totally eclipsed by Saturn at the time. From its far-flung perch millions of miles away, Cassini captured amazing portraits of Earth as a pale blue dot as thousands of people on the ground waved in honor of the global picture day.

"In this one magnificent view, Cassini has delivered to us a universe of marvels," Carolyn Porco, who leads Cassini's imaging team at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., said of the new image in a statement from NASA. "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."

Earth can be spotted as a blue dot to the lower right of Saturn, while Venus shines to the upper left of the gas giant. Mars, visible as a faint red dot, sits above and to the left of Venus.

Beyond inspiring wonder, this new view of Saturn also promises to help scientists study the planet's rings, which are best observed when light shines behind them, Cassini researchers say.

“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," Matt Hedman, a Cassini participating scientist at the University of Idaho in Moscow, said in a statement.

For example, the photos could shed light on the E-ring, whose icy particles are supplied by geysers erupting from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. Hedman explained that photos suggest there are disturbances in the E ring from diverse sources, including sunlight and the gravity of Enceladus (which is also one of seven moons visible in the image).

NASA also revealed a new photo collage based on the Saturn mosaic made up of about 1,600 images submitted by the public as part of the Cassini mission's "Wave at Saturn" campaign.

The Cassini mission launched in 1997 and arrived in orbit around Saturn in July 2004. The probe's mission is expected to continue until 2017, after which it will burn up in Saturn's atmosphere.


http://news.yahoo.com/saturn-earth-shine-amazing-photo-nasa-probe-220503153.html

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