Planetary Society logo
  • “Exploration is in our nature.” - Carl Sagan

Cassini's global views of Saturn and its rings, winter 2007

Cassini's global views of Saturn and its rings, winter 2007
Cassini's global views of Saturn and its rings, winter 2007 During the first months of 2007, Cassini repeatedly captured complete surveys of Saturn's globe and its entire ring system from different points of view, as the spacecraft circled above and below the planet on a highly inclined orbit. The left column contains mosaics of raw images, uncorrected for brightness or contrast. The right column contains the carefully mosaicked versions of the images. The global views were captured (from top to bottom) on January 19; January 21; February 5; February 17; February 18; February 19; February 20; February 23; and February 28. The first three and the last two were taken while Cassini was north of the ring plane, so the shadowed side of the rings is visible and the B ring looks dark. The middle four were taken while Cassini was south of the ring plane, so the rings are lit and the B ring looks bright. Saturn appears small at first where Cassini is near its orbital apoapsis, and larger as Cassini approaches periapsis. The phase of Saturn also changes as Cassini orbits around it; Cassini sees a crescent phase near apoapsis, and a full phase just after periapsis. The mosaics in the right column were produced by the Cassini imaging team (Jan. 19 and 21 mosaics) and by Ian Regan (February 20 mosaic). Over time, the Cassini imaging team will likely release more of these as corrected mosaics. NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Ian Regan / Emily Lakdawalla