NASA’s Cassini Orbiter

 

NASA’s Cassini probe captured this stunning high resolution photograph on 7/19/13 while transiting through the shadow of Saturn. That tiny blue dot indicated by the arrow is Earth, shown at a distance of approximately 900 million miles.

The Cassini spacecraft is a robotic orbiter designed to study the planet Saturn and its satellites. The orbiter, launched in 1997, arrived at Saturn in 2004 and has been taking scientific measurements and photographs since that time. What makes this photograph unique is that Earth is usually obscured from view by the Sun, so the timing of the position of the Sun and Earth as well as the Cassini orbiter when the photo was taken is the tricky part. 

Image Courtesy of: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute