Magnificent photos from space probes

Smithsonian posted an absolutely breathtaking gallery of images taken by space probes over the last decade. From Smithsonian:

The Cassini spacecraft, which is now orbiting Saturn, looked back toward the eclipsed Sun and saw a view unlike any other. The rings of Saturn light up so much that new rings were discovered.

"Fantastic Photos of our Solar System"

• [Davinder]

  @Kellyllek

  The NASA link provided by Dragonfrog above confirms that this image is a composite with the colour adjusted.

  “This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006… Color in the view was created by digitally compositing ultraviolet, infrared and clear filter images and was then adjusted to resemble natural color. “

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Unless they’re using film, it’s all just reassembled data. When your digital camera adjusts itself for light level before you click, you’ve entered the realm of photo manipulation.

• [Anonymous]

  “My god, it’s full of beauty.”

• [Anonymous]

  More Cassini images of Saturn can be found at:

  http://ciclops.org

• [imipak]

  That’s a particularly gorgeous image, but there are many, many more on the PDS and many other sites. Unlike ESA, NASA / JPL tax-funded work means all the data is released into the public domain.

  There are too many other instrument or spacecraft-specific sites to list (although the HiRISE camera, which produces images at such high resolution that they’d be classified if it was orbiting earth, merits a special mention: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ ). Because so much of this data’s firehosed out, and modern PCs and image processing software’s so powerful, so-called “amateurs” are producing stunning images like (one random example from many) James Canvin’s superb panoramas and mosaics stitched together from multiple hi-res images ( http://www.nivnac.co.uk ). If you enjoy that sort of thing, I highly recommend poking around on UnmannedSpaceflight. (NB /Do/ lurk for a bit and read the forum guidelines if you plan to post – there’s a zero-tolerance policy for some topics, which is why the signal to noise ratio is so high.)

• [KurtMac]

  Another cool thing about that Saturn photo above is that there is a tiny bright pixel just to the top left of the rings, and that pixel happens to be our Pale Blue Dot, Earth.

  “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.” -Carl Sagan, from Pale Blue Dot

• [hubbledeej]

  Saturn so good lookin’.

• [durkin]

  Smithsonian has update the photo gallery with direct links to all the larger images. I think this is my favorite, the Sun behind Jupiter: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA01621_modest.jpg

• [kellyllek]

  I’m not sure what to think about all these space images. As incredible as they are I’m given to understand that much of the image is caught by sensors outside of the visible spectrum, and then artists are used to enhance what the infrared and and ultra violet(etc…) sensors pick up. I have no knowledge that this is true but I remember in the past a major magazine article about an artist who’s job was to do as I described. In other words, these images don’t look real to me, and not simply because they are out of this world (pun intended). I doubt such highly refined images can be obtained, but it would be nice to know if I’m wrong? As awesome as they are, they should come with a disclaimer, (like an HDR or enhanced photograph), otherwise you may as well head over to the digital blasphemy site to check out those cool images.

• [dragonfrog]

  A higher resolution version of the picture above, from NASA’s (freaking fantastic) astronomy picture of the day site:

  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061016.html