12/20/2004: Dione
 

http://cellar.org/2004/dione1.jpg

A beautiful space image that's not Hubble? This is Dione, a moon of Saturn, as seen by Cassini. NASA writes:

Kinda looks like a back lit bullet hole through the planet.

Cool stuff, I hope they can get a shot of the lightning too.<blockquote> BEIJING, Dec. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- New data obtained from the Cassini spacecraft revealed that lightning on Saturn is a million times stronger than on Earth.

Cassini, the NASA probe currently orbiting Saturn, picked up radio signals from Earth lightning as far out as 89,200 kilometres. When the spacecraft approached Saturn last July, it started detecting lightning signals at a point about 161 million kilometres from the planet.

"This means that radio signals from Saturn's lightning are on the order of one million times stronger than Earth's lightning. That's just astonishing to me." Dr Don Gurnett, a space physicist from the University of Iowa, was quoted by The Scotsman as saying. </blockquote>[<a href="http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1448772004">Reference story</a>]

Hmm,when did I last see a picture of saturn without its ring.
Nice pic :D

Probably that time that the private investigator took pictures of saturn hanging out in singles bars trying to pick up loose satellites ...

Oh, I dunno, if they're that loose they won't let a ring get in the way.

Wolf, You crack me up :lol:

Tony,

This image is beautiful. There's something about it that's so compelling - like an amazing piece of abstract art. It's hard to believe it's not deliberately composed. The combination of contrasts is awesome - Saturn against the blackness of space, the moon against saturn (the position/placement of the moon against saturn), the black curved shades in the moon mirroring the blackness of space - too cool....

I almost expect to see pinball flippers somewhere.