A LO LEJOS || NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn | NASA

NASA Image Shows Earth Between the Rings of Saturn | NASA

NASA Image Shows 

Earth Between the 

Rings of Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this view of planet Earth as a point of light between the icy rings of Saturn on April 12, 2017.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Full image and caption

This cropped, zoomed-in version of the image makes it easier to see Earth's moon -- a smaller, fainter dot to the left of our planet's bright dot.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Full image and caption

A new image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows planet Earth as a point of light between the icy rings of Saturn.

The spacecraft captured the view on April 12, 2017, at 10:41 p.m. PDT (1:41 a.m. EDT on April 13). Cassini was 870 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) away from Earth when the image was taken. Although far too small to be visible in the image, the part of Earth facing Cassini at the time was the southern Atlantic Ocean.

Earth's moon is also visible nearby in a cropped, zoomed-in version of the image.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

More information about the Cassini mission:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

Preston Dyches

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-394-7013

preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-117     

Last Updated: April 21, 2017

Editor: Tony Greicius