The Day The Earth Smiled - Preview
The dark side of Saturn, its bright limb, the main rings, the F ring, and the G and E rings are clearly seen; the limb of Saturn and the F ring are overexposed. The "breaks" in the brightness of Saturn's limb are due to the shadows of the rings on the globe of Saturn, preventing sunlight from shining through the atmosphere in those regions. The E and G rings have been brightened for better visibility.
Earth, which is 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away in this image, appears as a blue dot at center right; the moon can be seen as a fainter protrusion off its right side. An arrow indicates their location in the annotated version. The other bright dots nearby are stars.
This is only the third time ever that Earth has been imaged from the outer solar system. The acquisition of this image, along with the accompanying composite narrow- and wide-angle image of Earth and the moon and the full mosaic from which both are taken, marked the first time that inhabitants of Earth knew in advance that their planet was being imaged. That opportunity allowed people around the world to join together in social events to celebrate the occasion.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 20 degrees below the ring plane.
Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 19, 2013 at a distance of approximately 753,000 miles (1.212 million kilometers) from Saturn, and approximately 898.414 million miles (1.445858 billion kilometers) from Earth. Image scale on Saturn is 43 miles (69 kilometers) per pixel; image scale on the Earth is 53,820 miles (86,620 kilometers) per pixel. The illuminated areas of neither Earth nor the Moon are resolved here. Consequently, the size of each "dot" is the same size that a point of light of comparable brightness would have in the wide-angle camera.Relevante Bilder
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The Day the Earth SmiledThe Day the Earth Smiled ist der Name eines zusammengesetzten Fotos, das von der NASA-Raumsonde Cassini am 19. Juli 2013 aufgenommen wurde. Der Name bezieht sich auch auf das fotografische Mosaik, das in vorangegangenen Jahren entstanden ist. Die Idee wurde von der Planetologin und Leiterin des Cassini-Bildgebungsteams Carolyn Porco entwickelt. Die Fotos riefen weltweit Menschen dazu auf, über unseren Platz im Universum nachzudenken, über das Leben auf der Erde zu staunen und zum Zeitpunkt der Aufnahme der Bilder in die Sterne zu blicken und zu lächeln. .. weiterlesen
Saturn (Planet)Der Saturn ist von der Sonne aus gesehen der sechste Planet des Sonnensystems und mit einem Äquatordurchmesser von etwa 120.500 Kilometern nach Jupiter der zweitgrößte. Mit 95 Erdmassen hat er jedoch nur 30 % der Masse Jupiters. Wegen seines auffallenden und schon im kleinen Fernrohr sichtbaren Ringsystems wird er oft auch der Ringplanet genannt, obwohl auch bei den anderen drei Gasplaneten Ringsysteme gefunden wurden. .. weiterlesen