Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Cassini-Huygens Collection
Title:
Cassini's Galactic Aspiriations
Description:
Cassini's Galactic Aspiriations
Full Description:
Cassini briefly turned its gaze from Saturn and its rings and moons to marvel at the Carina Nebula, a brilliant region 8,000 light years from our solar system and more than 200 light years across. Nearly every point of light in this image is a star in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

The nebula is a region of gas and dust made to glow by the ultraviolet light bursting from bright, hot and extremely massive young stars within. Darker regions in the scene are not devoid of stars; rather, they are areas where dense clouds of dust block the light from background stars.

This image and others like it are taken by the spacecraft from time to time for calibration purposes. Calibration images rarely contain such incredible sights. This one affirms Cassini's position as the farthest, working astronomical observatory ever established around our sun -- our eyes on the cosmos, a billion miles from Earth.

The image was taken using the Cassini wide-angle camera on May 14, 2005. The view is a 68-second, clear-filter exposure.

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 operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.n…. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

*Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Date:
December 22, 2005
Keywords:
Carina Nebula
Keywords:
Milky Way
facet_what:
Saturn
facet_what:
Cassini
facet_what:
Cassini-Huygens
facet_what:
Earth
facet_what:
Huygens Probe
facet_what:
Cassini Orbiter
facet_what:
Sun
facet_what:
Carina
facet_what:
MARVEL
facet_where:
Saturn
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
facet_where:
California
facet_where:
Washington
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_where:
Washington, D.C.
facet_when:
December 22, 2005
facet_when:
May 14, 2005
facet_when_year:
2005
UID:
SPD-SATRN-2251
original url:

Cassini's Galactic Aspiriations