The Planetary Society Blog

So does this mean that future asteroid miners, when they look up from their work, would be able to look "up" and see Saturn's rings without a telescope, or even binoculars? That's awesome! Especially if they can look in another direction and see a bright blue speck called "home".

There's something about this picture that resonates with the moments I remember (first as a kid)seeing the first colour shots of Earth from orbit published in LIFE Magazine, then the first Earth-rise images shot from lunar orbit (Apollo 8 I think?), and more recently the sequence of stills from one of the Mars rovers that combined into the Sun setting on Mars.

I suspect that what brings this image, into the same category (for me anyway), is this -like those others bring a context that our minds can grasp in an instant - vast Saturn so tiny, a fleeting rock in foreground that we had to travel so far, so fast, over so much time to see - just a hint of the scale of creation.

Thank you for posting this so early, for us non-scientists to appreciate! Thanks also to the Planetary Society for its important advocacy, so that we may continue to see things like this, and put ourselves into ever-evolving perspective!

Man, that picture gives me the chills.

Isn't this a computer generated image?

A majestic shot from a moving train on way to the comet! Wow!
A snap of Lutetia or Saturn by itself would have been too boring without any perspective, but together belongs to hall of fame!

Amazing photo! Considering the narrow field of view of most telescopic cameras and the orbital plane divergences among the Earth, Saturn and the asteriod, it is almost miraculous!
D

No RobertB that isn't what that means. How could you derive that?? The space probe that took that picture isn't using a little hand-held digital camera to snap shots. It's using a high powered telephoto lens almost akin to a telescope to take pictures. Therefor, Saturn is magnified to that size as well.

Look up and see Saturn......wow. Yeah that and little green men.

Excuse my ignorance, but to me the rock looks like a 3D computer simulation - are asteroids really that smooth, or is the smoothness caused by technical conditions of the shot? I guess it requires some sophisticated technology to get a sharp picture while flying-by at that speed?

photobomb

Is there another picture taken few minutes earlier or later than this, which, coupled with this great photograph, would make a stereo pair ? I'd love to have a go !
Well done all, and thanks for sharing.

I'm glad everyone liked this image so much! No, it's not computer-generated; it's a real photo shot by Rosetta, but it is like a telephoto camera -- the field of view of OSIRIS is only 2.4 degrees, about 1/50 that of human vision; its resolution is roughly 20 microradians per pixel, about 15 times better than the human eye. But there's no doubt Saturn (not to mention Jupiter) would be far more brilliant in the skies of asteroids than they are from Earth.

Yes, asteroids can be that smooth; they're covered in gravel and dust, a regolith made of its own bashed-up surface. Pretty soon I'll be posting a comparison of Lutetia to the other previously visited asteroids.

How or what do you capture that image?

Oh, Saturn, you vain bling-bling planet, is it not enough that you're one of the most photographed in the system? A meek lumpy little asteroid finally gets her day in front of the camera and you can't resist photo-bombing her debut.