Cassini's new views of Saturn

One of my long term interest has been astronomy. I blame Carl Sagan and the Cosmos series on PBS for the additional expenses I have incurred in telescopes and time freezing my butt off trying to get a good look at the Orion Nebula.

Enough about me and my freezing posterior. The Cassini-Huygens mission has been returning some amazing and unusual views of the ringed planet. The one below is a close up view revealing cloud structure and in the upper center of the photo is the moon Dionne. The black encircling Saturn's clouds are shadows from the rings. More spectacular views are available at the CICLOPS and from NASA/ JPL's Saturn mission websites.

Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory For Operations

Magnificent blue and gold Saturn floats obliquely as one of its gravity-bound companions, Dione, hangs in the distance. The darkened rings seem to nearly touch their shadowy reverse images on the planet below.

Found Originally at Slashdot