New Cassini Image Shows Earth and Moon between Saturn’s Rings

This view from NASA’s Cassini orbiter shows Earth and its only natural satellite as points of light between the icy rings of the gas giant Saturn.

Cassini captured this view of Earth and the Moon on April 12. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini captured this view on April 12, 2017, at 10:41 p.m. PDT (1:41 a.m. EDT on April 13).

The spacecraft was 870 million miles (1.4 billion km) away from Earth when the image was taken.

Although far too small to be visible in the image, the part of Earth facing Cassini at the time was the southern Atlantic Ocean.

The Moon is also visible to the left of Earth in a zoomed-in version of the image below.

Saturn’s rings visible here are the A ring (at top) with the Keeler and Encke gaps visible, and the F ring (at bottom).

During this observation Cassini was looking toward the backlit rings, making a mosaic of multiple images, with the sun blocked by the disk of Saturn.

Seen from Saturn, Earth and the other inner solar system planets are all close to the Sun, and are easily captured in such images, although these opportunities have been somewhat rare during the mission.

The F ring appears especially bright in this viewing geometry.

This cropped, zoomed-in version of the above image makes it easier to see the Moon — a smaller, fainter dot to the left of Earth’s bright dot. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

This past weekend, on April 22, Cassini made its final close flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan.

The flyby marks the mission’s final opportunity for up-close observations of the lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons that spread across Titan’s northern polar region.

The flyby is also the gateway to Cassini’s Grand Finale — a final set of 22 orbits that pass between the planet and its rings, ending with a plunge into Saturn on September 15 that will end the mission.