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Crescent Saturn

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March 19, 2014

View larger. | Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Cassini spacecraft cameras took this image of planet Saturn, which appears as only a thin, lit crescent, broken only by the shadows of its rings. It’s a view of Saturn you can’t see from Earth.

Give me five minutes and I’ll give you Saturn in 2014

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 42 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 20, 2013.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 142 degrees.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

Via NASA

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March 19, 2014

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Eleanor Imster

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About the Author:

Eleanor Imster has helped write and edit EarthSky since 1995. She was an integral part of the award-winning EarthSky radio series almost since it began until it ended in 2013. She and her husband live in Tennessee, where they enjoy guitar playing and singing. They have 2 grown sons.