There are times when I see an astronomical image so powerful that I'm momentarily stunned, my brain kicked hard enough that all I can do is stare at it and soak it in. This picture of Saturn is the latest to affect me this way:
[Click to embiggen.] This astonishing image was taken on June 13, 2012 by the Cassini spacecraft when it was 2.6 million kilometers (1.6 million miles) from the ringed planet -- that's more than six times farther than the Moon is from the Earth. Even then Saturn's rings span too broad a space to see completely. But artistically, perhaps, it works even better; their vast size is intimated instead of spoken aloud, the thousands of thinner component rings only hinted at. You can see their shadow on the tops of Saturn's southern clouds thousands of kilometers below, the Sun shining down from the north -- to ...
