Saturn Backlit By The Sun

[LightEye]

Dear Friends,

Nice...

http://www.edge.org/documents/images/newrings_cassini1000.gif

http://www.edge.org/documents/images/earth2_cassini800.gif

Be Well, Be Love.

David

One of these days, Edge may want to run this photo, which planetary scientist Carolyn Porco, leader of the Imaging Team for the Cassini mission to Saturn, showed us at the TED Conference: Saturn backlit by the sun, with the Earth appearing as a tiny dot in upper left (shown in the inset blowup). It is not only perhaps the most stunning photograph ever taken, but the fact that it has not appeared on the cover of Time, New York Times, etc., is a sign of our culture's indifference to science. This is truly awe-inspiring — not just visually beautiful, but a mind-boggling technical achievement, and a way to depict the finiteness and fragility of the planet in a way that we haven’t experienced since the famous "Earthrise" photo from the Apollo program in the late 1960s. — Steve Pinker

[soup]

That's truly amazing. It reminds me of an eclipse, as if within there contains some message of the occulted nature of Saturn. The thin halo around the planet gives a sense of something "cut and pasted", as if paradoxically the structural integrity of the planet has been somehow compromised from a view point position outside of its orbit (Saturn as symbol of structure), as if rebelious Uranus had some influence in the creation of this composition.

[charran]

That is an amazing shot! What I find interesting is that Saturn exactly covers the Sun in this shot...as does the moon during eclipses. I wonder if Jupiter covers the Sun exactly as well...and what the significance metaphysically is of this happening.

Charran

[Teresamh7]

I have an affinity for Saturn and that is my new favorite pic!

[soup]

It may be that any planet seen from the right distance can occult the sun in such a way. This right distance seems a function of the distance of the planet from the sun, the size of the sun, and the size of the planet.