ΚΡΟΝΟΣ!

In the shadow of +Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic +Cassini–Huygens spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed +Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible on this picture.

Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot

What's that pale blue dot in this image taken from Saturn? Earth.

The robotic Cassini spacecraft looked back toward its old home world earlier this month as it orbited Saturn. Using Saturn itself to block the bright Sun, Cassini imaged a faint dot on the right of the above photograph. That dot is expanded on the image inset, where a slight elongation in the direction of Earth's+Moon is visible. Vast water oceans make Earth's reflection of sunlight somewhat blue. Earth is home to over seven billion humans and over one octillion Prochlorococcus.

Image Credit: CICLOPS, JPL, ESA, NASA, Cassini Imaging Team, SSI
Explanation of the image from: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061016.html andhttp://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060927.html