This phenomenal shot of Saturn was released by the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) back on October 11th, 2006. The mosaic consists of 165 images from Cassini’s Wide Angle Camera, assembled from a three-hour observing stint on September 15th when Saturn shielded the spacecraft from the Sun’s brilliance. Visit this page to […]

Cassini looks into the 245-kilometer (150-mile) wide crater Melanthius in this view of the southern terrain on Tethys. The crater possesses a prominent cluster of peaks in its center which are relics of its formation.
Notable here is a distinct boundary in crater abundance — the cratering density is much higher in […]

The rings cannot hide the ragged, icy crescent of Rhea, here imaged in color by the Cassini spacecraft. The second-largest moon of Saturn shines brightly through gaps in the rings.
Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) lies beyond the dim, unlit side of the rings. A diffuse clump of material lies in […]

Darkness, darkness, be my pillow
Take my hand, and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep
– Youngbloods

Image Credit: NASA, JPL, Space Science Institute
This rare color view of Saturn’s night side shows how the rings dimly illuminate the southern hemisphere, giving it a dull golden glow. Part of […]

Feast your eyes upon this marvelous new shot of Saturn’s moon Mimas, released today by the Cassini imaging team. Mimas, as you may recall, bears some resemblance to the Death Star, of Star Wars fame.

Image Credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute (click to enlarge)
This amazing perspective view captures battered Mimas against the […]

Now this is truly a significant press release, one which I’ve been ogling periodically all day. In January of 2005, the Huygens probe, ferried to the Saturnian system by the Cassini spacecraft, successfully landed on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Huygens’ stately arrival marked a huge scientific milestone, delivering invaluable imagery and data […]

The Cassini imaging team must have been reading my mind. I was thinking over the last week that it’s been a while since we’ve seen a gorgeous color image from CICLOPS illustrating the beauty of our distant, ringed planetary neighbor. This latest release was definitely worth the wait.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. (Click to enlarge)
Dreamy […]