{"id":3890,"date":"2009-12-31T11:07:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T11:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/nasa-image-of-saturn-featured-in-time-magazines-year-in-pictures\/"},"modified":"2009-12-31T11:07:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T11:07:00","slug":"nasa-image-of-saturn-featured-in-time-magazines-year-in-pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/space-station\/nasa-image-of-saturn-featured-in-time-magazines-year-in-pictures.php","title":{"rendered":"NASA Image of Saturn Featured in Time Magazine’s ‘Year in Pictures’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Cassini<\/a><\/a>
A stunning view of Saturn<\/a> from NASA's Cassini spacecraft<\/span><\/a> has made Time<\/i> Magazine's 2009 \"Year in Pictures.\"<\/a>
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The photo, released in September and dubbed \"The Rite of Spring,\"<\/a> was the first up close view from a <\/span>spacecraft <\/span>from <\/span>Earth of Saturn's equinox<\/span>, when the sun's disk is directly overhead at <\/span>Saturn's equator<\/span>. That sun angle illuminates the gas giant's famous rings edge-on, opening up a new perspective.<\/a>

As Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco tells Time<\/i>, \"The geometry revealed structures and phenomena in the rings we had never seen before. We saw this famous adornment spring from two dimensions into three, with some ring structures soaring as high as the Rocky Mountains. It made me feel blessed.\"<\/p>

The spectacle occurs twice during each orbit Saturn makes around the sun, which takes approximately 10,759 <\/p><\/span> Earth <\/span>days, or about 29.7 <\/span>Earth <\/span>years. <\/span>Earth <\/span>experiences a similar equinox phenomenon twice a year; the autumnal equinox will occur Sept. 22, when the sun will shine directly over <\/span>Earth's equator<\/span>.

For about a week, scientists used the <\/p><\/span>Cassini <\/span>orbiter to look at puffy parts of <\/span>Saturn's rings<\/span> caught in white glare from the low-angle lighting. Scientists have known about vertical clumps sticking out of the rings in a handful of places, but they could not directly measure the height and breadth of the undulations and ridges until Saturn's equinox revealed their shadows.

\"It's like putting on <\/p><\/span>3-D glasses<\/span> and seeing the third dimension for the first time,\" said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at <\/span>NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/span> in Pasadena, Calif. \"This is among the most important events <\/span>Cassini <\/span>has shown us.\"

Time<\/i> isn't the only publication recognizing <\/p><\/span> NASA <\/span>for outstanding imagery this year: <\/span><\/div>