Photo #2 (Nov 2011)

IN THE SHADOW OF SATURN

God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us.
We should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.

— Goethe


Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.

We are so lucky to have been born in this age of accelerting discoveries. Hopefully, our understandings of our inner worlds will expand at a rate comparable to the rates of our delvving into the outer worlds. This is our only hope for survival.
                                           - Dan Benor, MD