NASA releases stunning new image of Saturn and Earth

NASA invited the public to celebrate by finding Saturn in their part of the sky, waving at the ringed planet and sharing pictures over the Internet.



An annotated version of the Saturn system mosaic labels points of interest. Earth is a bright blue dot to the lower right of Saturn.

Venus is a bright dot to Saturn's upper left. Mars also appears, as a faint red dot, above and to the left of Venus.

Seven Saturnian moons are visible, including Enceladus on the left side of the image.
Zooming into the image reveals the moon and the icy plume emanating from its south pole, supplying fine, powder-sized icy particles that make up the E ring.

The E ring shines like a halo around Saturn and the inner rings. Because it is so tenuous, it is best seen with light shining from behind it, when the tiny particles are outlined with light because of the phenomenon of diffraction.