Collection:
NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection Collection NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection Collection
Title:
Pale Blue Orb Title Pale Blue Orb Title
Original Caption Released with Image:
Figure 1 Not since NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft saw our home as a pale blue dot from beyond the orbit of Neptune has Earth been imaged in color from the outer solar system. Now, Cassini casts powerful eyes on our home planet, and captures Earth, a pale blue orb -- and a faint suggestion of our moon -- among the glories of the Saturn system. In figure 1, Earth is captured in a natural color portrait made possible by the passing of Saturn directly in front of the sun from Cassini's point of view. At the distance of Saturn's orbit, Earth is too narrowly separated from the sun for the spacecraft to safely point its cameras and other instruments toward its birthplace without protection from the sun's glare. The Earth-and-moon system is visible as a bright blue point on the right side of the image above center. Here, Cassini is looking down on the Atlantic Ocean and the western coast of north Africa. The phase angle of Earth, seen from Cassini is about 30 degrees. A magnified view of this image taken through the clear filter (monochrome) shows the moon as a dim protrusion to the upper left of Earth. Seen from the outer solar system through Cassini's cameras, the entire expanse of direct human experience, so far, is nothing more than a few pixels across. Earth no longer holds the distinction of being our solar system's only "water world," as several other bodies suggest the possibility that they too harbor liquid water beneath their surfaces. The Saturnian moon, Enceladus, is among them, and is also captured on the left in this image (see inset), with its plume of water ice particles and swathed in the blue E ring which it creates. Delicate fingers of material extend from the active moon into the E ring. See PIA08321 Original_Caption_Rel eased_with_Image Figure 1 Not since NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft saw our home as a pale blue dot from beyond the orbit of Neptune has Earth been imaged in color from the outer solar system. Now, Cassini casts powerful eyes on our home planet, and captures Earth, a pale blue orb -- and a faint suggestion of our moon -- among the glories of the Saturn system. In figure 1, Earth is captured in a natural color portrait made possible by the passing of Saturn directly in front of the sun from Cassini's point of view. At the distance of Saturn's orbit, Earth is too narrowly separated from the sun for the spacecraft to safely point its cameras and other instruments toward its birthplace without protection from the sun's glare. The Earth-and-moon system is visible as a bright blue point on the right side of the image above center. Here, Cassini is looking down on the Atlantic Ocean and the western coast of north Africa. The phase angle of Earth, seen from Cassini is about 30 degrees. A magnified view of this image taken through the clear filter (monochrome) shows the moon as a dim protrusion to the upper left of Earth. Seen from the outer solar system through Cassini's cameras, the entire expanse of direct human experience, so far, is nothing more than a few pixels across. Earth no longer holds the distinction of being our solar system's only "water world," as several other bodies suggest the possibility that they too harbor liquid water beneath their surfaces. The Saturnian moon, Enceladus, is among them, and is also captured on the left in this image (see inset), with its plume of water ice particles and swathed in the blue E ring which it creates. Delicate fingers of material extend from the active moon into the E ring. See PIA08321 Original Caption Released with Image
Original Caption Released with Image:
, for a more detailed view of these newly-revealed features. The narrow tenuous G ring and the main rings are seen at the right. The view looks down from about 15 degrees above the un-illuminated side of the rings. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this view. The image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 15, 2006, at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraf t angle of almost 179 degrees. Image scale is 129 kilometers (80 miles) per pixel. At this time, Cassini was nearly 1.5 billion kilometers (930 million miles) from Earth. 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.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. Original_Caption_Rel eased_with_Image , for a more detailed view of these newly-revealed features. The narrow tenuous G ring and the main rings are seen at the right. The view looks down from about 15 degrees above the un-illuminated side of the rings. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this view. The image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 15, 2006, at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraf t angle of almost 179 degrees. Image scale is 129 kilometers (80 miles) per pixel. At this time, Cassini was nearly 1.5 billion kilometers (930 million miles) from Earth. 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.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. Original Caption Released with Image
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Image_Credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Image Credit
Produced By:
Cassini Imaging Team Produced_By Cassini Imaging Team Produced By
Mission:
Cassini Mission Cassini Mission
Spacecraft:
Cassini Orbiter Spacecraft Cassini Orbiter Spacecraft
Target Name:
Earth Target_Name Earth Target Name
Is a satellite of:
Sol (our sun) Is_a_satellite_of Sol (our sun) Is a satellite of
Instrument:
Imaging Science Subsystem - Wide Angle Instrument Imaging Science Subsystem - Wide Angle Instrument
Product Size:
243 samples x 226 lines Product_Size 243 samples x 226 lines Product Size
Primary Data Set:
Cassini Primary_Data_Set Cassini Primary Data Set
facet_what:
Sun facet_what Sun facet_what
facet_what:
Moon facet_what Moon facet_what
facet_what:
Voyager facet_what Voyager facet_what
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Voyager 1 facet_what Voyager 1 facet_what
facet_what:
Earth facet_what Earth facet_what
facet_what:
Neptune facet_what Neptune facet_what
facet_what:
Saturn facet_what Saturn facet_what
facet_what:
Cassini facet_what Cassini facet_what
facet_what:
Enceladus facet_what Enceladus facet_what
facet_what:
Cassini Orbiter facet_what Cassini Orbiter facet_what
facet_what:
Huygens Probe facet_what Huygens Probe facet_what
facet_what:
Cassini-Huygens facet_what Cassini-Huygens facet_what
facet_what:
Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) facet_what Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) facet_what
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory facet_where Jet Propulsion Laboratory facet_where
facet_where:
Saturn facet_where Saturn facet_where
facet_where:
California facet_where California facet_where
facet_where:
Washington facet_where Washington facet_where
facet_where:
Enceladus facet_where Enceladus facet_where
facet_where:
Atlantic Ocean facet_where Atlantic Ocean facet_where
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) facet_where Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) facet_where
facet_where:
Washington, D.C. facet_where Washington, D.C. facet_where
Image #:
PIA08323 Image_# PIA08323 Image #
UID:
SPD-PHOTJ-PIA08323 UID SPD-PHOTJ-PIA08323 UID
orignial url:
http://photojournal… orignial_url http://photojournal… orignial url

Pale Blue Orb

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Pale Blue Orb