Astro Image in the News:
Saturn's Stunning Beauty

With all the amazing science results being churned out by NASA's Cassini orbiter, it is sometimes easy to forget just how beautiful the pictures of the Saturnian system have turned out to be. Take this recently released view. Appearing to hover delicately above Saturn's A and F rings is the battered, pockmarked moon Epimetheus. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, watches the scene from the background. Epimetheus is about 116 kilometers (72 miles) across; Titan's diameter is 5,150 km. The dark band in the A ring is the Encke gap, a region relatively free of rubble that has been cleared out by the gravity of another moon, Pan.

There are no amazing scientific results to discuss here. This image isn't going to lead to hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles. Nor will a Nobel Prize come from this shot. But it does serve as a wonderful reminder of the stunning beauty that our solar system has to offer.

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