Since 2004, the Cassini
spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn, collecting gobs of data and images,
resulting in major discoveries — from geysers and hydrothermal activity on
Saturn's moon Enceladus to the dynamics of the planet's rings — plus some
glorious artwork. Since all the data has been made available to the public,
some enthusiasts have created their own images. NASA has called these
"amateur images," but you'll likely be wowed beyond belief.
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| Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Ian Regan |
Ian Regan created this image
from a sequence captured by Cassini over 90-plus minutes on the morning of Oct.
28, 2016, Regan said. Three of Saturn's moons are visible in the image:
Epimetheus, Atlas and Prometheus. The moon Epimetheus can be seen near Saturn,
just above the right ansa, or the portion of the ring that appears farthest
away from the planet's disk in the image. Meanwhile, Atlas and Prometheus can
be seen at the tip of the left ansa. Regan noted that Pan (a moon in the A
ring) is too faint to be detectable; Janus, the potato-shaped moon in the gap
between the F and G rings, must be just out of frame, he added.
One of Elisabetta Bonora's favorite pastimes seems to be
exploring the raw images snapped from the Cassini spacecraft and creating
something amazing from them. "It's wonderful to be able to take advantage
of Cassini's eyes," Bonora said in a NASA statement. "I like to dream
I am there too." Bonora, a video and web analyst who lives near Savona,
Italy, said this particular image jumped out at her: "From the get go, I
thought this image was a splendid example of great composition and beautiful
geometry."
The image shows Saturn on the left, with very thin rings
that appear almost perpendicular to the field of view, she noted. "On top
of the rings, right in the middle of the image, there are two moons (Rhea and
Mimas) suspended in midair. It's simply a picture-perfect scene," she
said.
Senior editor of The Planetary Society, Emily Lakdawalla
captured this gorgeous snapshot revealing five Saturnian moons. "Cassini
caught five moons at the edge of Saturn's ring system in this natural color
photo from July 29, 2011." The moons, starting at the left of the image:
Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Mimas and Rhea.
Stephane Calonnec created this image of Saturn from a raw
Cassini image captured on March 12, 2014. She colorized it using standard Saturn
colors. "I chose not to remove the blurry light from bottom as it is part
of the original picture," Calonnec said in a NASA statement. "I've
done it 'just for fun' and to test whether I could do a nice picture of a
vessel's [spacecraft's] photo, not pretending scientific or artistic artwork. I
just hope you will like it."
Saturn's colors are the result of the composition of its
cloud layers, as well as their varying heights, according to NASA. The cloud
layers consist mostly of ammonia ice crystals.
This image, created by Maksim Kakitsev, shows Saturn's
inner rings, the moon Mimas (at the bottom) and the F ring. "This
true-color view was created from Cassini's raw images taken on Jan. 18, 2005
using the narrow angle camera and red, green, and blue filters."
Mimas, which looks eerily like the Death Star, the
planet-destroying space weapon in "Star Wars," is the closest major
moon to Saturn.