New images of Saturn from CICLOPS: "A Splendor Seldom Seen"

Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging Team Leader and Director, CICLOPS, shares a spectacular new astronomy photograph with Boing Boing, and explains:

Of all the many glorious images we on Cassini have received from Saturn, none are more strikingly unusual than those we have taken from within Saturn's shadow. They unveil a rare splendor seldom seen anywhere else in our solar system. Today, the Cassini imaging team is releasing one such image, actually a mosaic of sixty images, taken from Saturn’s shadow on October 17, 2012 and processed in false color.
This glorious image is our special gift to you, the people of the world, in this holiday season that brings the year 2012 to a close.
I fervently hope it serves as a reminder that we humans, though troubled and warlike, are also the dreamers, thinkers, and explorers inhabiting one achingly beautiful planet, yearning for the sublime, and capable of the magnificent.We hope it reminds you to protect our planet with all your might and cherish the life it so naturally sustains.
Happy holidays to all!

More about the image here, a "captain's log" blog post here, and larger sizes (text links on right hand side) for your ooh-ing and aaah-ing pleasure on large monitors.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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fergus1948

Finally, an image for which the only possible response is ‘awesome!’
benattenborough

Not as impressive as the rings around Uranus
- http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux
  
  Not as funny the way I pronounce Uranus, but I think I see what you did there.
  - Andrew Singleton
    
    They make paper you can use to clean that up y’know.
http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux

Gorgeous and amazing for certain, but I’m curious to see what it looks like in real colour.
- Luke
  
  They’ve already done a color image of Saturn’s shadow…
http://walkingwithshimmer.wordpress.com/ Werther deGoethe

Beautiful.
Luke

And this is why we need to spend more money on space exploration…
miasm

OMFG
zuludaddy

Aaaand I have an image for my late holiday emails. Thanks, Xeni. This is truly a wonderful thing.
noah django

Ms. Porco’s message is almost as beautiful as the image it accompanies. Bravo!