Celestial Holiday Treats!

The solstice is almost here and it is time for some holiday treats.

First up is this amazing image of Saturn from the Cassini imaging team:

The image was taken from within Saturn's shadow looking back toward the sun. This does not show Saturn in "true color", but rather the color is enhanced here.  Read all about the image here.

The next treat comes from the Spitzer Space Telescope:

It is an infrared image showing the star known as Zeta Ophiuchi and a cloud of dust. Stellar winds are creating a sort of bow shock in the dust cloud as the star moves through space. Like all infrared images, this one is false color too as we can't see infrared light.  Read more about it here.

Beautiful, aren't they?

Saturn in the Raw

The Cassini mission to Saturn is revolutionizing our understanding of the planet, its moons, rings and more. You can see wonderfully processed images on their website and on the CICLOPS, the website of the imaging team.

One of the nice things about the mission is the ability to see raw, unprocessed images before they get cleaned up for mass consumption. Here is a wonderful film of Cassini's raw images. They are chalk full of cosmic ray streaks, out of focus dust specks and other things.  In spite of all that, it is beautiful.



CASSINI MISSION from cabbas on Vimeo.