Washington, June 19 (ANI): On July 19, 2013, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will be turned to image Saturn and its entire ring system during a total eclipse of the Sun, as it has done twice before during its previous 9 years in orbit.
But this time, the images that will be collected have been specifically designed for something very special. They will capture, in natural color, a glimpse of our own planet next to Saturn and its rings, during an event that will be the first time Earthlings know in advance their picture will be taken from a billion miles away.
"It will be a day for all the world to celebrate," said Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Porco was involved in co-initiating and executing the famous "Pale Blue Dot" image of Earth taken by NASA's Voyager 1 from beyond the orbit of Neptune in 1990.
"While Earth will be only about a pixel in size from Cassini's vantage point 898 million miles [1.44 billion kilometers] away, the Cassini team is looking forward to giving the world a chance to see what their home looks like from Saturn," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The intent for the upcoming mosaic is to capture the whole scene, Earth and Saturn's rings from one end to the other, in those particular camera filters-red, green and blue-that can be composited to form a natural color view, or what human eyes might see at Saturn.
It also includes imaging the Earth and the Moon with the high-resolution camera, something not yet done by Cassini.
Cassini's images of Earth, both wide angle and narrow angle, will be captured between 21:27 and 21:42 on July 19 UTC, or 14:27 and 14:42 PDT.
During these times, North America and part of the Atlantic ocean will be in sunlight. The illuminated parts of the Earth and the Moon will each be no more than one pixel across. (ANI)
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