I just got word from Dr. Carolyn Porco from the Saturn Cassini mission that the voting results are in for best Saturn pictures. In a surprise to absolutely no one, this image won in the color category:
I take full credit, since this is a variation on my pick for Top Astronomy Picture of 2006.
The other categories (black and white, animation) also produced some stunners, so as an end of the year treat, take a click over to the CICLOPS site. You should take a look through the images in the archives too. It’s a good way to ring in the new year. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Man, I’m funny.
Update: I was informed I had the wrong version of the Saturn image here, so I updated it with the correct one. This one has not been enhanced by the CICLOPS team to show very faint material, and just shows the planet, rings, and moons. Both images are gorgeous!
December 31st, 2007 at 12:34 pm
That is truly an awesome and awe inspiring picture. It kind of looks like Saturn is floating on water with the rings looking like ripples extending from it. Very cool.
December 31st, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Yes, I like that one. Great joke, BA.
December 31st, 2007 at 1:07 pm
This is the image that had the women around me crying at Carolyn Porco’s talk at Spacefest 2007! It sure has an emotional impact.
Jim
December 31st, 2007 at 1:13 pm
That ring remark was really pungent. Almost punishing.
December 31st, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Happy New Year BA. Keep up the good work and best wishes from the UK
December 31st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
The “Flight over Iapetus” on the CICLOPS site is way cool too and worth the download wait for the blow up version.
Happy New Year!
December 31st, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Phil,
Don’t forget that the unenhanced version also shows the Earth!
Happy New Year to everyone.
And be sure to stay tuned for Cassini’s flight through the plume coming off the south pole of Enceladus in March of next year.
Best wishes from 10 AU,
Carolyn Porco
December 31st, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Carolyn Porco says: “And be sure to stay tuned for Cassini’s flight through the plume coming off the south pole of Enceladus in March of next year.”
Wow, that’s pretty spectacular!
What are the risks doing that? I know the plume must be pretty diffuse, but the encounter speed must be on the order of tens of thousands of Km/hr. What sort of sampling can you do? I didn’t think Cassini had any sort of chemistry instrumentation on board, and you aren’t about to bring any of it back like Stardust.
- Jack
PS – My spell checker suggests “Enchladas” for “Enceladus”
December 31st, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Ah yes, the rarely seen “Enchladas Nebula” which is found in the Sombrero galaxy:
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/whyastro/sombrero.jpg
December 31st, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Chip’s Picture brought to you buy Taco Bell, the official Fast Food joint of the Sombrero Galaxy! Ole!
December 31st, 2007 at 10:10 pm
This is my favorite picture from Cassini. Not only does it show the beauty of Saturn and its rings. It shows us for what we are. That pale blue dot is us. Carl Sagan saw that pale blue dot as seen from Voyager # I on 1990 and wrote this:
“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.”
“The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.”
“Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Reflections on a Mote of Dust
–
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
* -
December 31st, 2007 at 10:56 pm
The blog ate the link at the bottom:
* - http://youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw
January 1st, 2008 at 9:05 am
The new year has started off really good. When I signed on this morning I found out that I had won a poster of this picture.
Needless to say, I pretty happy.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
It is a beautiful image and I saved my National Geographic from last year. But I knew it would win, so I voted for the underdog images. It was difficult voting, for sure. A Happy 2008 to the CICLOPS team!
JR, I’m jealous. I thought I put in my email address, but I haven’t received any emails regarding the contest or otherwise. ~sniffle~ Congratulations! I agree, a poster of Saturn is an excellent way to start off the new year.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Needless to say, my typing/proofreading skills haven’t improved with the new year
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 am
Amazing !!!