Cassini's Christmas Gift: In the Shadow of Saturn

astroengine writes "As the Cassini mission continues to orbit the ringed gas giant Saturn, it's hard to imagine what magnificent view the NASA spacecraft will show us next. Today, however, is one for the history books. As a very special Christmas holiday treat, the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) team have processed a magnificent view of Saturn that is rarely seen — a portrait from the dark side of the planet."

Comments

Re:Anybody have another link?

[wooferhound]

The Ciclops site linked in the summery is the official Cassini site for processed pictures and raw images taken by Cassini. NASA gets the pics after they are released on Ciclops.

Re:Photoshop

[mark-t]

Nope. Looks nothing like it.

Re:So, Cassini is like my sister

[nschubach]

In case anyone is interested:

The mosaic being released today by the mission and the imaging team, in celebration of the 2012 holiday season, does not contain Earth; along with the sun, our planet is hidden behind Saturn. However, it was taken when Cassini was closer to Saturn and therefore shows more detail in the rings than the one taken in 2006.

(Source)

I don't understand this picture

[Hazelfield]

There's something about that picture that's hard for my brain to process. I get the backlit rings to the sides of the planet and the shadow the planet casts on its rings on the dark side, but where do the rings on the upper half of the planet come from and why do they seem offset from the other rings?

Re:I don't understand this picture

[chichilalescu]

The camera is behind and "below" Saturn, and Saturn's rings are "tilted" towards the Sun (you can see this because the planet's shadow on the rings is curved; if the ring was parallel to the light rays, the shadow would have straight edges).
The planet's back is lit by the rings: the upper part gets light reflected by the rings, and some diffused light, while the lower part only gets diffused light, that's why the upper part is better illuminated.
The "black rings" that you can see over the upper part of the planet are just the back of the rings (i.e the part that's in Saturn's shadow). Because the planet is much better illuminated than this portion of the rings, you see them as black on colored background (they must receive some light from the back of the planet, but that's probably below the sensitivity threshold of the camera).
They are "offset" because you only notice the portion between the camera and the planet; the rest of the shadowy part of the rings is dark on a dark background, so you can't see it.