Pale Blue Dot
Pale Blue Dot (PBD, englisch für blassblauer Punkt) ist der Name eines Fotos der Erde, welches auf Anregung des US-amerikanischen Astronomen Carl Sagan von der Raumsonde Voyager 1 aus einer Entfernung von etwa 6 Milliarden Kilometer oder 40,5 AE aufgenommen wurde. Es handelt sich bis heute um das aus dem größten Abstand gemachte Foto der Erde. Zudem war es zum damaligen Zeitpunkt die größte Distanz zur Erde, aus der jemals ein Foto aufgenommen wurde.[1]
Das Bild entstand am 14. Februar 1990 als Teil einer Serie von 60 Bildern. Die Serie enthält neben der Sonne Bilder von sechs Planeten. Wissenschaftler wählten das Foto 2001 zu einem der zehn besten Fotos der Weltraumwissenschaften.[1]
Entstehung des Fotos
Auf Anregung Carl Sagans wurde Voyager 1, nach Abschluss der primären Missionsziele, um 180 Grad gedreht und nahm eine Serie von 39 Weitwinkel- und 21 Teleaufnahmen auf:[2][3]
Die Sonde befand sich zum Zeitpunkt der Aufnahme etwa 6 bis 7 Milliarden Kilometer von der Sonne entfernt und 32 Grad oberhalb der Ekliptik, blickte also von oben auf das Sonnensystem. Auf der Collage sind von links nach rechts zu erkennen: Jupiter, die Erde, Venus, die Sonne, Saturn, Uranus und Neptun. Merkur und Pluto sind auf dem Foto nicht zu sehen, da sie zu klein waren, als dass sie von den Kameras hätten erfasst werden können. Der Mars befand sich zum Zeitpunkt der Aufnahmen zu nah an der Sonne und wurde von ihr überstrahlt.
Die Erde wurde mit einer Vidicon-Kamera mit Teleobjektiv aufgenommen. Die Kamera besitzt sieben Farbfilter, für dieses Bild wurden der blaue, grüne und violette Filter verwendet. Die durch das Bild führenden Strahlen entstanden als Streuung des Sonnenlichts auf der Kameraoptik, da sie nicht dafür ausgelegt war, direkt auf die Sonne ausgerichtet zu werden. Die Erde nimmt lediglich 12 % der Abmessungen eines einzelnen Bildpunkts ein.[2]
Die Weitwinkelaufnahme der Sonne wurde mit dem dunkelsten Filter und der kürzestmöglichen Belichtungszeit (5/1000 Sekunden) aufgenommen, um eine Überbelichtung zu vermeiden. Die Sonne hat aus dieser Distanz nur 1/40 des scheinbaren Durchmessers wie von der Erde aus gesehen, ist jedoch noch 8 Millionen Mal heller als der nächsthellste Stern Sirius.[4]
Nach Fertigstellung der Aufnahmen wurden die Kamerasysteme von Voyager dauerhaft deaktiviert. Die zur Interpretation der Bilddaten notwendige Technik auf der Erde wurde ebenfalls abgebaut.[5]
Rekordmarken
Für viele Jahre hielt die Bilderserie des „Familienporträts des Sonnensystems“ den Rekord für die mit dem größten Abstand zur Erde gemachten Aufnahmen mit 6 Milliarden Kilometer oder 40,5 AE Abstand. Erst die Raumsonde New Horizons konnte diesen Rekord brechen und Bilder aus noch größerer Distanz aufnehmen. So entstanden am 5. Dezember 2017 Aufnahmen in einem Abstand von 6,12 Milliarden Kilometer oder 40,9 AE. Diese Aufnahmen zeigen einen Sternhaufen und die beiden Kuipergürtelobjekte 2012 HZ84 und 2012 HE85. Das Pale Blue Dot ist somit weiterhin die Aufnahme der Erde aus dem größten Abstand zu ihr.[6]
Neue Fotoversion
Im Jahr 2020, zum 30-jährigen Jubiläum des Bildes, veröffentlichte die NASA eine neue Version des ursprünglichen Voyager-Fotos: Pale Blue Dot Revisited, das mit modernen Bildverarbeitungstechniken erstellt wurde, „wobei versucht wurde, die ursprünglichen Daten und Absichten derjenigen zu respektieren, die die Bilder geplant haben“. Helligkeitsstufen und Farben wurden neu ausbalanciert, um die Erde besser sichtbar zu machen. Das Bild wurde vergrößert, erscheint heller und weniger körnig als das Original. Die Position der Sonne ist unten, wo das Bild am hellsten ist.[7]
Buch und Überlegungen von Carl Sagan
Das Bild inspirierte Sagan zu seinem Buch Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (deutscher Titel: „Blauer Punkt im All. Unsere Zukunft im Kosmos“).[8] Der Autor, der schon mit dem Buch und der Fernsehserie Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (deutscher Titel „Unser Kosmos“) einer breiten Öffentlichkeit komplexe wissenschaftliche Themen wie die Entstehung des Universums, der Galaxie und des Lebens nähergebracht hatte, mischt in diesem Buch philosophische Betrachtungen über die Stellung des Menschen im Universum mit Erklärungen über das zeitgenössische Wissen über unser Sonnensystem. Überdies existieren Videokollagen, die mit Tonaufnahme von Carl Sagan unterlegt wurden.[9][10]
„We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
(Es ist uns gelungen, dieses Bild [aus dem tiefen Weltraum] aufzunehmen, und wenn man es betrachtet, sieht man einen Punkt. [Dieser Punkt] ist hier. Er ist unser Zuhause. Wir sind das. Darauf hat jeder, von dem ihr je gehört habt, jeder Mensch, der je gelebt hat, sein Leben gelebt. Die Summe aller unserer Freuden und Leiden, Tausende von selbstbewussten Religionen, Ideologien und Wirtschaftsformen, alle Jäger und Sammler, alle Helden und Feiglinge, alle Schöpfer und Zerstörer von Zivilisationen, alle Könige und Bauern, alle verliebten jungen Paare, alle hoffnungsvollen Kinder, alle Mütter, alle Väter, alle Erfinder und Entdecker, alle Morallehrer, alle korrupten Politiker, alle Superstars, alle obersten Führer, alle Heiligen und Sünder in der Geschichte der Menschheit lebten dort auf diesem Staubkörnchen, das im Sonnenlicht tanzt.
Die Erde ist eine sehr kleine Bühne im riesigen Theater des Kosmos. Man denke nur an die Ströme von Blut, die von Generälen und Feldherren vergossen werden, um für Ruhm und Triumph einen Augenblick lang der Herrscher über einen Bruchteil eines Punktes zu werden. Man denke an die endlosen Grausamkeiten, die die Bewohner eines Winkels auf diesem Punkt an kaum anders gearteten Bewohnern eines anderen Winkel des Punktes zufügen. Wie wenig sie sich verstehen, wie gern sie sich gegenseitig umbringen, wie glühend ihr Hass ist. Unsere Anmaßung, unsere eingebildete Wichtigkeit, die wahnwitzige Vorstellung, dass wir im Universum einen besonderen Platz einnehmen, wird von diesem schwachen Lichtpunkt in Frage gestellt.
Unser Planet ist ein einsames Körnchen im großen Dunkel des Weltalls. In unserer Dunkelheit – in all dieser Weite – gibt es keinen Hinweis, dass von draußen jemand kommt, um uns vor uns selbst zu schützen. Es liegt an uns. Es wurde gesagt, dass Astronomie eine bescheiden machende, und ich möchte hinzufügen, eine charakterbildende Beschäftigung ist. Vielleicht gibt es keinen besseren Beweis für die Aberwitzigkeit menschlicher Vorstellungen als dieses aus großer Entfernung aufgenommene Bild von unserer winzigen Erde. Für mich unterstreicht es unsere Verantwortung, dass wir freundlicher und mitfühlender miteinander umgehen und diesen kleinen blauen Punkt, das einzige Zuhause, das wir je gekannt haben, bewahren und wertschätzen.)“
The Day the Earth Smiled
(„Der Tag, an dem die Erde lächelte“)
Eine ähnliche Aufnahme entstand im Rahmen der Cassini-Huygens-Mission am 19. Juli 2013: Aus einer Perspektive im Schatten des Saturn wurde eine Aufnahme gemacht, welche die Erde (im Bild: Earth-Moon), Mars und Venus zeigt. Eine Aufnahme mit kleinerem Aufnahmewinkel konnte auch noch den Erdmond erfassen. Das Publikum auf der Erde war gebeten worden, zur Zeit der Aufnahme in Richtung Saturn zu schauen und zu lächeln.
Siehe auch
- Earthrise
- Pale Red Dot
- Blue Marble
Weblinks
Einzelnachweise
- ↑ a b space.com: Experts Pick: Top 10 Space Science Photos (Memento vom 6. Juli 2008 im Internet Archive) 25. September 2001.
- ↑ a b Solar System Portrait - 60 Frame Mosaic, visibleearth.nasa.gov
- ↑ Emily Lakdawalla, Charlene Anderson: Twenty years since Voyager's last view. planetary.org, 12. Februar 2010, abgerufen am 9. August 2014 (englisch).
- ↑ PHOTO CAPTION, June 6, 1990, P-36087A&B, Voyager, Public Information Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 6. Juni 1990 (txt)
- ↑ We're scientists and engineers on NASA's Voyager mission. Our spacecraft is now in interstellar space. Ask Us Anything! auf reddit.com
- ↑ JHUAPL: New Horizons Captures Record-Breaking Images in the Kuiper Belt. In: New Horizons. (jhuapl.edu [abgerufen am 20. Februar 2018]).
- ↑ 'Pale Blue Dot' Revisited. Abgerufen am 25. Juni 2020.
- ↑ Carl Sagan: Blauer Punkt im All. Unsere Zukunft im Kosmos. Droemer Knaur, München 1996, ISBN 3-426-26906-6 (438 S., amerikanisches Englisch: Pale Blue Dot. A Vision of the Human Future in Space. New York. Übersetzt von Susanne Bunzel, Erstausgabe: Random House, 1994).
- ↑ YouTube (Memento vom 21. Oktober 2013 im Internet Archive) The Pale Blue dot
- ↑ Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Steven Soter: Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot OFFICIAL. 2013, abgerufen am 10. März 2023 (englisch, Video auch auf https://carlsagan.com/ (nach unten scrollen)).
- ↑ Sagan, Carl (1997). Pale Blue Dot. United States: Random House USA Inc. ISBN 9780345376596.
Auf dieser Seite verwendete Medien
Bildunterschrift aus dem Englischen übersetzt:
Diese Telefotografie der Erde, unter dem Namen ‘Pale Blue Dot’ ("Blassblaues Pünktchen") bekannt, ist Teil des allerersten Porträts des Sonnensystems, und wurde von der Raumsonde Voyager 1 fotografiert. Die Raumsonde machte 60 Aufnahmen vom Sonnensystem aus einer Entfernung von 6 Mrd. Kilometern und etwa 32 Grad über der Ekliptik.
Von Voyagers weit entferntem Blickpunkt aus gesehen, ist die Erde nur ein winziger Lichtpunkt, kleiner als ein Bildelement der Engwinkelkamera: Die Erde zeigt sich als 0,12 Pixel großes Sichelchen. Zufälligerweise liegt die Erde gerade inmitten einer der Streulichtstrahlen, die wegen der Aufnahme des Bildes in der Nähe der Sonne entstehen. Dieses vergrößerte Bild der Erde wurde durch drei Farbfilter fotografiert – violett, blau und grün – und anschließend zu einem Farbbild zusammengefügt. Das Hintergrundrauschen ist auf die Vergrößerung zurückzuführen.The cameras of Voyager 1 on Feb. 14, 1990, pointed back toward the sun and took a series of pictures of the sun and the planets, making the first ever "portrait" of our solar system as seen from the outside. In the course of taking this mosaic consisting of a total of 60 frames, Voyager 1 made several images of the inner solar system from a distance of approximately 4 billion miles and about 32 deqrees above the ecliptic plane. Thirty-nine wide angle frames link together six of the planets of our solar system in this mosiaic. Outermost Neptune is 30 times further from the sun than Earth. Our sun is seen as the bright object in the center of the circle of frames. The wide- angle image of the sun was taken with the camera's darkest filter (a methane absorption band) and the shortest possible exposure (5 thousandths of a second) to avoid saturating the camera's vidicon tube with scattered sunlight. The sun is not large as seen from Voyager, only about one-fortieth of the diameter as seen from Earth, but is still almost 8 million times brighter than the brightest star in Earth's sky, Sirius. The result of this great brightness is an image with multiple reflections from the optics in the camera. Wide-angle images surrounding the sun also show many artifacts attributable to scattered light in the optics. These were taken through the clear filter with one second exposures. The insets show the planets magnified many times. Narrow-angle images of Earth, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were acquired as the spacecraft built the wide-angle mosaic. Jupiter is larger than a narrow-angle pixel and is clearly resolved, as is Saturn with its rings. Uranus and Neptune appear larger than they really are because of image smear due to spacecraft motion during the long (15 second) exposures. From Voyager's great distance Earth and Venus are mere points of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun.
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Original Caption Released with Image: The cameras of Voyager 1 on Feb. 14, 1990, pointed back toward the sun and took a series of pictures of the sun and the planets, making the first ever "portrait" of our solar system as seen from the outside. In the course of taking this mosaic consisting of a total of 60 frames, Voyager 1 made several images of the inner solar system from a distance of approximately 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. Thirty-nine wide angle frames link together six of the planets of our solar system in this mosaic. Outermost Neptune is 30 times further from the sun than Earth. Our sun is seen as the bright object in the center of the circle of frames. The wide-angle image of the sun was taken with the camera's darkest filter (a methane absorption band) and the shortest possible exposure (1/125 second) to avoid saturating the camera's vidicon tube with scattered sunlight. The sun is not large as seen from Voyager, only about one-fortieth of the diameter as seen from Earth, but is still almost 8 million times brighter than the brightest star in Earth's sky, Sirius. The result of this great brightness is an image with multiple reflections from the optics in the camera. Wide-angle images surrounding the sun also show many artifacts attributable to scattered light in the optics. These were taken through the clear filter with one second exposures. The insets show the planets magnified many times. Narrow-angle images of Earth, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were acquired as the spacecraft built the wide-angle mosaic. Jupiter is larger than a narrow-angle pixel and is clearly resolved, as is Saturn with its rings. Uranus and Neptune appear larger than they really are because of image smear due to spacecraft motion during the long (15 second) exposures. From Voyager's great distance Earth and Venus are mere points of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun.
PIA23645: Pale Blue Dot Revisited
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23645
Related Video (Carl Sagan; 3:30) => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g - Original
Related Video (Carl Sagan; 3:26) => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5FwsblpT8 - Official
For the 30th anniversary of one of the most iconic images taken by NASA's Voyager mission, a new version of the image known as the "Pale Blue Dot."
Planet Earth is visible as a bright speck within the sunbeam just right of center and appears softly blue, as in the original version published in 1990 (see PIA00452).
This updated version uses modern image-processing software and techniques to revisit the well-known Voyager view while attempting to respect the original data and intent of those who planned the images.
In 1990, the Voyager project planned to shut off the Voyager 1 spacecraft's imaging cameras to conserve power and because the probe, along with its sibling Voyager 2, would not fly close enough to any other objects to take pictures. Before the shutdown, the mission commanded the probe to take a series of 60 images designed to produce what they termed the "Family Portrait of the Solar System." Executed on Valentine's Day 1990, this sequence returned images for making color views of six of the solar system's planets and also imaged the Sun in monochrome.
The popular name of this view is traced to the title of the 1994 book by Voyager imaging scientist Carl Sagan, who originated the idea of using Voyager's cameras to image the distant Earth and played a critical role in enabling the family portrait images to be taken.
The image of Earth was originally published by NASA in 1990. It is republished here to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Family Portrait of the Solar System (see PIA00451) and the Pale Blue Dot image in particular.
The planet occupies less than a single pixel in the image and thus is not fully resolved. (The actual width of the planet on the sky was less than one pixel in Voyager's camera.) By contrast, Jupiter and Saturn were large enough to fill a full pixel in their family portrait images.
The direction of the Sun is toward the bottom of the view (where the image is brightest). Rays of sunlight scattered within the camera optics stretch across the scene. One of those light rays happens to have intersected dramatically with Earth. From Voyager 1's vantage point — a distance of approximately 3.8 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) — Earth was separated from the Sun by only a few degrees. The close proximity of the inner planets to the Sun was a key factor preventing these images from being taken earlier in the mission, as our star was still close and bright enough to damage the cameras with its blinding glare.
The view is a color composite created by combining images taken using green, blue and violet spectral filters by the Voyager 1 Narrow-Angle Camera. They were taken at 4:48 GMT on Feb. 14, 1990, just 34 minutes before Voyager 1 powered off its cameras forever.
Like the original version, this is technically a "false-color" view, as the color-filter images used were mapped to red, green and blue, respectively. The brightness of each color channel was balanced relative to the others, which is likely why the scene appears brighter but less grainy than the original. In addition, the color was balanced so that the main sunbeam (which overlays Earth) appears white, like the white light of the Sun.
At its original resolution, the newly processed color image is 666 by 659 pixels in size; this is Figure A. The main image is an enlarged version.
The image was processed by JPL engineer and image processing enthusiast Kevin M. Gill with input from two of the image's original planners, Candy Hansen and William Kosmann.PIA17172: The Day the Earth Smiled
On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.
With the sun's powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini's onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn's orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.
With both Cassini's wide-angle and narrow-angle cameras aimed at Saturn, Cassini was able to capture 323 images in just over four hours. This final mosaic uses 141 of those wide-angle images. Images taken using the red, green and blue spectral filters of the wide-angle camera were combined and mosaicked together to create this natural-color view. A brightened version with contrast and color enhanced, a version with just the planets annotated, and an unannotated version are also available.
This image spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across.
The outermost ring shown here is Saturn's E ring, the core of which is situated about 149,000 miles (240,000 kilometers) from Saturn. The geysers erupting from the south polar terrain of the moon Enceladus supply the fine icy particles that comprise the E ring; diffraction by sunlight gives the ring its blue color. Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers, across) and the extended plume formed by its jets are visible, embedded in the E ring on the left side of the mosaic.
At the 12 o'clock position and a bit inward from the E ring lies the barely discernible ring created by the tiny, Cassini-discovered moon, Pallene (3 miles, or 4 kilometers, across). (For more on structures like Pallene's ring, see PIA08328). The next narrow and easily seen ring inward is the G ring. Interior to the G ring, near the 11 o'clock position, one can barely see the more diffuse ring created by the co-orbital moons, Janus (111 miles, or 179 kilometers, across) and Epimetheus (70 miles, or 113 kilometers, across). Farther inward, we see the very bright F ring closely encircling the main rings of Saturn.
Following the outermost E ring counter-clockwise from Enceladus, the moon Tethys (662 miles, or 1,066 kilometers, across) appears as a large yellow orb just outside of the E ring. Tethys is positioned on the illuminated side of Saturn; its icy surface is shining brightly from yellow sunlight reflected by Saturn. Continuing to about the 2 o'clock position is a dark pixel just outside of the G ring; this dark pixel is Saturn's Death Star moon, Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers, across). Mimas appears, upon close inspection, as a very thin crescent because Cassini is looking mostly at its non-illuminated face.
The moons Prometheus, Pandora, Janus and Epimetheus are also visible in the mosaic near Saturn's bright narrow F ring. Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers, across) is visible as a faint black dot just inside the F ring and at the 9 o'clock position. On the opposite side of the rings, just outside the F ring, Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometers, across) can be seen as a bright white dot. Pandora and Prometheus are shepherd moons and gravitational interactions between the ring and the moons keep the F ring narrowly confined. At the 11 o'clock position in between the F ring and the G ring, Janus (111 miles, or 179 kilometers, across) appears as a faint black dot. Janus and Prometheus are dark for the same reason Mimas is mostly dark: we are looking at their non-illuminated sides in this mosaic. Midway between the F ring and the G ring, at about the 8 o'clock position, is a single bright pixel, Epimetheus. Looking more closely at Enceladus, Mimas and Tethys, especially in the brightened version of the mosaic, one can see these moons casting shadows through the E ring like a telephone pole might cast a shadow through a fog.
In the non-brightened version of the mosaic, one can see bright clumps of ring material orbiting within the Encke gap near the outer edge of the main rings and immediately to the lower left of the globe of Saturn. Also, in the dark B ring within the main rings, at the 9 o'clock position, one can see the faint outlines of two spoke features, first sighted by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s and extensively studied by Cassini.
Finally, in the lower right of the mosaic, in between the bright blue E ring and the faint but defined G ring, is the pale blue dot of our planet, Earth. Look closely and you can see the moon protruding from the Earth's lower right. (For a higher resolution view of the Earth and moon taken during this campaign, see PIA14949.) Earth's twin, Venus, appears as a bright white dot in the upper left quadrant of the mosaic, also between the G and E rings. Mars also appears as a faint red dot embedded in the outer edge of the E ring, above and to the left of Venus.
For ease of visibility, Earth, Venus, Mars, Enceladus, Epimetheus and Pandora were all brightened by a factor of eight and a half relative to Saturn. Tethys was brightened by a factor of four. In total, 809 background stars are visible and were brightened by a factor ranging from six, for the brightest stars, to 16, for the faintest. The faint outer rings (from the G ring to the E ring) were also brightened relative to the already bright main rings by factors ranging from two to eight, with the lower-phase-angle (and therefore fainter) regions of these rings brightened the most. The brightened version of the mosaic was further brightened and contrast-enhanced all over to accommodate print applications and a wide range of computer-screen viewing conditions.
Some ring features -- such as full rings traced out by tiny moons -- do not appear in this version of the mosaic because they require extreme computer enhancement, which would adversely affect the rest of the mosaic. This version was processed for balance and beauty.
This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 17 degrees below the ring plane. Cassini was approximately 746,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Saturn when the images in this mosaic were taken. Image scale on Saturn is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) per pixel.
This mosaic was made from pictures taken over a span of more than four hours while the planets, moons and stars were all moving relative to Cassini. Thus, due to spacecraft motion, these objects in the locations shown here were not in these specific places over the entire duration of the imaging campaign. Note also that Venus appears far from Earth, as does Mars, because they were on the opposite side of the sun from Earth.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.