NASA. LARGE FORMAT. CASSINI space probe. As NASA's Cassini p - Lot 272

NASA. LARGE FORMAT. CASSINI space probe. As NASA's Cassini probe heads for a rendezvous with Saturn on July 1, 2004, the Hubble Space Telescope continues to take breathtaking photos of the solar system's most photogenic planet. This latest image, taken on March 22, 2004, is so sharp that many individual rings are visible in the plane of Saturn's rings. Although Hubble is nearly a billion kilometers closer to Saturn than the Cassini probe, Hubble's exquisite optics, combined with the high resolution of its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), enable it to take pictures of Saturn that are almost as sharp as Cassini's wide-angle views of the entire planet as it begins to approach. Of course, Cassini would eventually far surpass Hubble's resolution in its close encounter with Saturn; indeed, Cassini's sharpness began to surpass Hubble's as it approached to within 23 million km of Saturn. The Hubble camera's exposures in four filters (blue, blue-green, green and red) were combined in this image, to render colors similar to what the eye would see through a telescope focused on Saturn. The subtle pastel colors of the ammonia-methane clouds reflect a variety of atmospheric dynamics. Saturn has its familiar banded structure, with haze and clouds at different altitudes. As with Jupiter, all bands run parallel to Saturn's equator. Even the magnificent rings, whose inclination towards the Earth is almost maximal, show subtle hues that testify to chemical differences in their icy composition. 2007. Vintage chromogenic print. Numbering in the margin on the front. Legend on back label. 40.6 x 40.6CM with margins.