Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging Team Leader and Director, CICLOPS, shares a spectacular new astronomy photograph with Boing Boing, and explains:
Of all the many glorious images we on Cassini have received from Saturn, none are more strikingly unusual than those we have taken from within Saturn’s shadow. They unveil a rare splendor seldom seen anywhere else in our solar system. Today, the Cassini imaging team is releasing one such image, actually a mosaic of sixty images, taken from Saturn’s shadow on October 17, 2012 and processed in false color.
This glorious image is our special gift to you, the people of the world, in this holiday season that brings the year 2012 to a close.
I fervently hope it serves as a reminder that we humans, though troubled and warlike, are also the dreamers, thinkers, and explorers inhabiting one achingly beautiful planet, yearning for the sublime, and capable of the magnificent.We hope it reminds you to protect our planet with all your might and cherish the life it so naturally sustains.
Happy holidays to all!
More about the image here, a “captain’s log” blog post here, and larger sizes (text links on right hand side) for your ooh-ing and aaah-ing pleasure on large monitors.