While cruising around Saturn in early October 2004, Cassini captured a series
of images that have been composed into the largest, most detailed, global
natural color view of Saturn and its rings ever made.
This grand mosaic consists of 126 images acquired in a tile-like fashion,
covering one end of Saturn's rings to the other and the entire planet in
between. The images were taken over the course of two hours on Oct. 6, 2004,
while Cassini was approximately 6.3 million kilometers (3.9 million miles) from
Saturn. Since the view seen by Cassini during this time changed very little, no
re-projection or alteration of any of the images was necessary.
Three images (red, green and blue) were taken of each of 42 locations, or
"footprints," across the planet. The full color footprints were put together to
produce a mosaic that is 8,888 pixels across and 4,544 pixels tall.
The smallest features seen here are 38 kilometers (24 miles) across. Many of
Saturn's splendid features noted previously in single frames taken by Cassini
are visible in this one detailed, all-encompassing view: subtle color variations
across the rings, the thread-like F ring, ring shadows cast against the blue
northern hemisphere, the planet's shadow making its way across the rings to the
left, and blue-grey storms in Saturn's southern hemisphere to the right. Tiny
Mimas and even smaller Janus are both faintly visible at the lower left.
The Sun-Saturn-Cassini, or phase, angle at the time was 72 degrees; hence, the
partial illumination of Saturn in this portrait. Later in the mission, when the
spacecraft's trajectory takes it far from Saturn and also into the direction of
the Sun, Cassini will be able to look back and view Saturn and its rings in a
more fully-illuminated geometry.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division
of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its
two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging
team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
