Ten Best Pictures From NASA's Cassini Probe

[Sam I Am]

Cassini is a spacecraft sent by NASA to Saturn to study the planet and it's moons.

Ten Best Pictures From NASA's Cassini Probe

Saturn casts a long shadow across its icy rings in a 2007 picture taken by NASA's Cassini-Huygens spacecraft—an unattainable perspective from Earth's line of sight. The picture is among Cassini's ten best, chosen by National Geographic News photo editors to mark the probe's anniversary.



Jupiter's volcanic moon Io spins against the backdrop of its parent planet in 2001. Cassini snapped the image as the craft swung past the gas giant en route to the Saturnian system.



Saturn's concentric rings—and the gaps in those rings—stand out in unprecedented detail in this 2008 natural-color picture taken by Cassini.



From less than 39,000 miles (63,000 kilometers) away, Cassini snapped the first ever picture of Saturn's highly pitted moon Hyperion (pictured) in 2005.

(on a side note, the first server I ever built up as a professional system admin, I named Hyperion after this moon. It was an Windows NT domain controller)



Saturn's rings cast a razor-thin shadow on the planet in a 2009 Cassini picture.



A large storm (top right) roils in Saturn's upper atmosphere in a 2011 infrared composite image.



While cruising by Saturn in February 2007, Cassini captured a series of haze-penetrating infrared images, which were combined to create this false-color mosaic.



Saturn's heavily cratered moon Mimas seems to hover over its home planet in a 2007 Cassini image.



Smoggy, golden Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is set against the backdrop of the giant planet in May 2012.



"Tiger stripes" on Saturn's moon Enceladus (pictured) are seen in an enhanced-color mosaic created with Cassini images taken in 2005.

[Phoenix]

Very nice!!

[DFWJC]

Amazing.

[Shunpike]

Awesome pics.

I wish there was a way to travel to the planets and come back. Maybe in 50 years or so people will be able to do it and view these amazing pictures with their own eyes.

[DallasCowpoke]

Originally Posted by Sam I Am

(on a side note, the first server I ever built up as a professional system admin, I named Hyperion after this moon. It was an Windows NT domain controller)

Ohhh, I was wondering what your "tramp stamp" tattoo referred to!

[rynochop]

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

Awesome pics.

I wish there was a way to travel to the planets and come back. Maybe in 50 years or so people will be able to do it and view these amazing pictures with their own eyes.

Probably more like 5 million years. Wish the pics weren't so doctored up.

[Sam I Am]

Originally Posted by rynochop

Probably more like 5 million years. Wish the pics weren't so doctored up.

lol Doctored up? Some of them are taken in the infrared spectrum. If they hadn't been doctored up, there would be nothing to see.

Some of them aren't really doctored up. The images of the just Saturn's rings are in natural color. Many times these images are taken with monochrome cameras. (like CCD cameras) and they take several different shots use different filters. Then stack the images which returns natural color to them.

Other times they will apply specific filters, that cause different substances to show up as a specific color. The reason they do this is because it allows them to see what the cloud tops are made of.

There is a purpose for doing what they do. They don't do it to artificially *hack* the images for no reason.

Go check out Youtube for processing Astrophotography. (like DSS, etc)

btw, it only took Curiosity 253 days to reach Mars.

[Rynie]

Amazing. The Saturn photos do look a little fake. Do any real close-up images exist of the ring?

[Sam I Am]

Originally Posted by Rynie

Amazing. The Saturn photos do look a little fake. Do any real close-up images exist of the ring?

Those images are not fake. The Cassini probe is in orbit around Saturn. Those are real images from the Cassini probe.

[Shunpike]

Originally Posted by rynochop

Probably more like 5 million years.

I hope not. I am not a space guru but as far as I know human body can't stay in an environment where there is zero gravity. Body loses its composure. Right now the idea is to send people in a craft that rotates to create gravity. That way, it will be possible to go and come back. Another problem is the storage of food and water for such a trip. I believe humanity will solve this problem as well.

Maybe not in 50 years but in a more reasonable time, I believe people will able to go to distant planets.

But again I am not a space guru.

[Future]

I rarely care for pictures of nature/space/whatever...but those are seriously sweet.

[Sam I Am]

Originally Posted by Future

I rarely care for pictures of nature/space/whatever...but those are seriously sweet.

I don't look at these pictures because they are of space or even nature. I love them because physics (ie math) is beautiful. What you are seeing is math (physics) working it's magic. That magic is incredible beautiful.

For instance this image has nothing to do with space.



Or this. The colors in this vibrant mixture is a pattern that translates to a feeling that you've never felt before. While not Earth shattering, they are profound.



The point being, what beauty you are seeing, isn't some random pixels of a man made environment. It's the mathematics of evolutionary physics in it's natural habitat un-altered by man. The world we live in evolving unobstructed into a canvas of colors. Creating and destroying that canvas as the mathematical equations roll and evolve.

The best artists in history weren't creating their own details and painting them. They were attempting to emulate nature's natural progression in their own form. They were more in tune to natures mathematics. Or more plainly stated. They were more in tune to Math's progression for the current state of the world and only displaying their own view of it.