The folks who put together the stunning images from the Saturn Cassini-Huygens probe have just finished a contest, asking visitors to their site to pick their favorite image taken over the course of the two-year mission.
The hands-down winner was this shot to the right, a spot-on picture of a total solar eclipse, as seen from directly behind the ringed planet.
The image was pieced together from a total of 165 separate photos taken over three hours as Cassini drifted in Saturn's shadow. The color was produced by combining ultraviolet, infrared, and clear filter images, and adjusting the result to mimic natural color.
The unusual eclipse perspective allowed scientists a glimpse at faint rings that had previously been unknown. Inside the faint outer G ring, Earth itself is even visible.
A pair of photos tied for first place in the black-and-white category. The first, shown here to the left, depicts the northern latitudes of Saturn, using infrared light that penetrates the atmosphere more deeply than does ordinary visible-wavelength light.
The second black-and-white winner, at bottom, was also taken in the infrared spectrum, looking across Saturn's rings to the moon Titan.
The team that does this image piecework, called the Cassini Imaging
Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) doesn't get enough recognition. It's worth spending an hour or two or six browsing around their site, which also hosts images from other missions including
Voyager and Galileo.
(Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
