Amazing Saturn Photo: Cassini's Awe-Inspiring Image

[setAI]

I just found this on Edge.org- it has got to be one of the most beautiful space photographs ever- taken by Casini- shown at the TED conference:

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

the caption:
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
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[russ_watters]

Great photo - it was on the cover of Astronomy a few months ago.

 

[neutrino]

The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, for one is crazy about that picture.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/10/11/best-saturn-picture-evah/
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/10/25/get-saturn-on-the-natgeo-cover/
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/11/20/national-geographic-bends-to-the-will-of-the-bablog/
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/12/27/the-top-ten-astronomy-images-of-2006/

Of course, who in their right mind wouldn't be?

 

[MeJennifer]

I just found this on Edge.org- it has got to be one of the most beautiful space photographs ever- taken by Casini- shown at the TED conference:

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

Beautiful!