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Cassini Saturn Photo 2012: NASA Space Probe Snaps Spectacular Image Of Ringed Planet (PHOTO)

WOW: Most Glorious Image Ever Of Ringed Planet?
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Managing Editor of Impact & Innovation, The Huffington Post

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The Cassini spacecraft has taken lots of spectacular photos of Saturn over the eight-plus years it's been orbiting the ringed gas giant. But a new image released just in time for the holidays may be the most beautiful.

"Of all the many glorious images we have received from Saturn, none are more strikingly unusual than those taken from Saturn's shadow," the lead of the Cassini imaging team at the Space Science Institute, Carolyn Porco, said of the new image in a written statement released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The institute is based in Boulder, Colo.

The glorious back-lit photograph--actually a mosaic of images taken in the violet, visible, and near-infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum taken when Cassini was about 500,00 miles from Saturn--was snapped on Oct. 17, 2012, during the probe's 174th orbit around the planet, according to the statement.

At the time, the space probe was situated in what space scientists call a "very scientifically advantageous and coveted viewing position"--namely peering back toward the sun while in Saturn's shadow.

The image shows neither the sun nor Earth but does capture two of Saturn's moons, Enceladus and Tethys, according to the statement. They are tiny but visible off the planet's lower left side, with Enceladus closer to the rings and Tethys below and to the left.

The last time Cassini snapped a photo from this position was in Sept. 2006. That mosaic image, processed to look like natural color, was called "In Saturn's Shadow." Unlike the new image, it showed Earth in the background.

Earlier in December, a photo snapped by Cassini showed evidence of a vast river system on Saturn's biggest moon, Titan.

The Cassini mission is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency.

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Before You Go

Cassini Pictures Of Saturn And Its Moons
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(credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
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A crescent Enceladus appears with Saturn's rings in this Cassini spacecraft view of the moon.
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With giant Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering Cassini from the sun's blinding glare, the spacecraft viewed the rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world.
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This is an artist's concept of the Saturnian plasma sheet based on data from Cassini magnetospheric imaging instrument. It shows Saturn's embedded 'ring current,' an invisible ring of energetic ions trapped in the planet's magnetic field.Saturn is at the center, with the red 'donut' representing the distribution of dense neutral gas outside Saturn's icy rings. Beyond this region, energetic ions populate the plasma sheet to the dayside magnetopause filling the faintly sketched magnetic flux tubes to higher latitudes and contributing to the ring current. The plasma sheet thins gradually toward the nightside.Image Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL
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A quartet of Saturn's moons, from tiny to huge, surround and are embedded within the planet's rings in this Cassini composition.
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This stunning false-color view of Saturn's moon Hyperion reveals crisp details across the strange, tumbling moon's surface. Differences in color could represent differences in the composition of surface materials. The view was obtained during Cassini's very close flyby on Sept. 26, 2005.Hyperion has a notably reddish tint when viewed in natural color. The red color was toned down in this false-color view, and the other hues were enhanced, in order to make more subtle color variations across Hyperion's surface more apparent.
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The colorful globe of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true color snapshot from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
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Vertical structures, among the tallest seen in Saturn's main rings, rise abruptly from the edge of Saturn's B ring to cast long shadows on the ring in this image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft two weeks before the planet's August 2009 equinox.Part of the Cassini Division, between the B and the A rings, appears at the top of the image, showing ringlets in the inner division.
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Flying past Saturn's moon Dione, Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet's rings.
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Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show that the sizes and patterns of dunes on Saturn's moon Titan vary as a function of altitude and latitude. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, and NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
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Saturn's small, potato-shaped moon Prometheus appears embedded within the planet's rings near the center of this Cassini spacecraft view while the larger moon Mimas orbits beyond the rings.
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The line of Saturn's rings disrupts the Cassini spacecraft's view of the moons Tethys and Titan.
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Although traveling at great speed, the Cassini spacecraft managed to capture this close view of Saturn's small moon Helene during a flyby on March 3, 2010.Saturn's atmosphere makes up the background of this composition.
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The Cassini spacecraft looks at a brightly illuminated Enceladus and examines the surface of the leading hemisphere of this Saturnian moon.
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Saturn's third-largest moon Dione can be seen through the haze of its largest moon, Titan, in this view of the two posing before the planet and its rings from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
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Saturn's moon Mimas peeks out from behind the night side of the larger moon Dione in this Cassini image captured during the spacecraft's Dec. 12, 2011, flyby of Dione.
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A quintet of Saturn's moons come together in the Cassini spacecraft's field of view for this portrait.
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The best view of Saturn's rings in the ultraviolet indicates there is more ice toward the outer part of the rings, than in the inner part, hinting at the origins of the rings and their evolution.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained this unprocessed image on Dec. 12, 2011.
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Recent Cassini images of Saturn's moon Enceladus backlit by the sun show the fountain-like sources of the fine spray of material that towers over the south polar region. The image was taken looking more or less broadside at the 'tiger stripe' fractures observed in earlier Enceladus images. It shows discrete plumes of a variety of apparent sizes above the limb of the moon.The greatly enhanced and colorized image shows the enormous extent of the fainter, larger-scale component of the plume.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained this unprocessed image on Dec. 12, 2011.
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Saturn sits nested in its rings of ice as Cassini once again plunges toward the graceful giant.This natural color mosaic was acquired by the Cassini spacecraft as it soared 39 degrees above the unilluminated side of the rings.
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