NASA's Cassini spacecraft was able to take breathtaking new photos of Saturn overlapping with the sun while the Earth and neighboring planets glow like dots in the background.
The robotic spacecraft was launched to space back in 1997 and reached Saturn's orbit in July 2004. Its mission is to study the planetary rings and behavior of the planet through 2017. Afterwhile, it is expected to burn in the atmospheric space of Saturn.
The image taken by Cassini is a mosaic composed of 141 images taken in wide-angle shots and natural color that imitate a human's eyesight. The panoramic view taken on July 19, 2013 was able to cover 404,880 miles or 651,591 km including all but one of Saturn's rings.
In the spectacular photo, the Earth is seen as a glowing dot at the lower right of the ringed planet. Venus and Mars on the other hand can be found at the upper left of Saturn.
Aside from the image of Saturn, NASA also unveiled another photo mosaic which put together images from the public's 1,600 submissions during the "Wave at Saturn" event.
"In this one magnificent view, Cassini has delivered to us a universe of marvels. And it did so on a day people all over the world, in unison, smiled in celebration at the sheer joy of being alive on a pale blue dot," said Cassini Imaging head Carolyn Porco of NASA's Space Science Institute in a statement.
The panoramic view of Saturn did not just arouse aesthetic appreciation of space but also the scientific desire to probe into the planet's distinct qualities, such as studying its numerous rings.
According to one of the Cassini scientists Matt Hedman, "This mosaic provides a remarkable amount of high-quality data on Saturn's diffuse rings, revealing all sorts of intriguing structures we are currently trying to understand."
One particular direction is the apparent disorder in the E-ring which is the second to the last outer rings of Saturn. The E-ring is encountering different forces such as the sun's rays and one of the moon's gravity that is worthy of further study.
