Image captures Saturn, Mars, Earth and Venus
If you were to travel to Saturn and look back toward Earth, this is what you would have seen this past July.
The U.S. space agency, NASA, just released a natural-color image of Saturn from space, the first in which Saturn, its moons and rings, and Earth, Venus and Mars, all are visible.
The image is actually a mosaic of 141 wide-angle photos taken by the Cassini probe. The image sweeps 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across Saturn and its inner ring system, including all of Saturn’s rings out to the E ring, which is Saturn’s second outermost ring.
Cassini does not attempt many images of Earth because the sun is so close to our planet that an unobstructed view would damage the spacecraft’s sensitive detectors. Cassini team members looked for an opportunity when the sun would slip behind Saturn from Cassini’s point of view. A good opportunity came on July 19, when Cassini was able to capture a picture of Earth and its moon, and this multi-image, backlit panorama of the Saturn system.
Launched in 1997, Cassini has explored the Saturn system for more than nine years. NASA plans to continue the mission through 2017.