Cassini Spacecraft Crosses Saturns Ring Plane
Explanation:
If this is Saturn, where are the rings?
When Saturn's "appendages"
disappeared in 1612,
Galileo
did not understand why.
Later that century, it became understood that
Saturn's
unusual protrusions were rings and that when the
Earth crosses the ring plane,
the edge-on rings will
appear to disappear.
This is because Saturn's rings are confined to a
plane many times thinner, in proportion, than a
razor blade.
In modern times, the
robot Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn frequently crossed
Saturn's ring plane during its mission to Saturn,
from 2004 to 2017.
A series of plane crossing images from 2005 February
was dug out of the vast
online Cassini raw image archive by interested Spanish amateur
Fernando Garcia Navarro.
Pictured here, digitally cropped and set in representative colors,
is the striking result.
Saturn's thin ring plane
appears in blue, bands and clouds in
Saturn's upper atmosphere
appear in gold.
Details of Saturn's rings can be seen in the high
dark shadows across the top of this image,
taken back in 2005.
The moons
Dione and
Enceladus appear as
bumps in the rings.
Free Presentation:
APOD Editor to show best astronomy images of 2019 -- and the decade -- in NYC on
January 3
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
