Bright, Shiny, Small

It’s always fun to get a look at worlds in our solar system from the perspective of other planets. The imaging system on the Cassini spacecraft, which is on a multi-year mission studying the Saturn system, caught a glimpse of Venus during one of the mission’s orbits around Saturn. What you’re seeing here is what Venus (and basically Earth if it were visible in this image) would look like if you were orbiting Saturn from your own space station.

Our inner solar system worlds would be just tiny dots in the distance.  In the foreground would be Saturn itself — or rather just the limb of the ringed planet as shown at left. The rings stretch out to the left.

The image on the right also shows Venus as it appeared from the Cassini spacecraft on January 4th, 2013. The rings are not illuminated as much as they were in the previous image, making it easier to spot the planet. That bluish streak at the lower right is the E ring.

You need to look at these pictures in full size (just click on them) to appreciate the beauty of seeing Earth’s neighbor world from faraway Saturn. To me, it really brings home the fact that our home world is really a tiny place in space — and it’s the only home world we have!