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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat the Earth and Moon Look Like From Saturn
Did you smile and wave at Saturn on Friday? If you did (and even if you didnt) heres how you and everyone else on Earth looked to the Cassini spacecraft, 898.4 million miles away.
Hope you didnt blink!
The image above is a color-composite made from raw images acquired by Cassini in red, green, and blue visible light wavelengths. Some of the specks around the edges are background stars, and others are the result of high-energy particle noise, of which some have been digitally removed.
The Moon is the bright dot just below and to the left of Earth. (An original raw image (green filter) can be seen here.)
Cassini acquired the images while capturing views of Saturn in eclipse against the Sun between 22:24:00 UTC on July 19 and 02:43:00 UTC on July 20 (6:24 to 10:43 pm EDT July 19.) On Cassini time, the Earth imaging took place between 22:47:13 UTC (6:47:13 pm EDT) and 23:01:56 UTC (7:01:56 pm EDT) on the 19th.
http://www.universetoday.com/103611/what-the-earth-and-moon-look-like-from-saturn/
JI7
(89,262 posts)ThoughtCriminal
(14,047 posts)I have not made the calculations, but I believe that, at the optimal times, viewing Jupiter from Saturn's orbit would be similar in brightness to viewing Venus from Earth. Since Jupiter's orbit is closer to the Sun than Saturn, it would also have phases similar to Venus from Earth.
On rare occasions, Jupiter will transit in front of the Sun as seen from Saturn. The last one was in 1226, and the next is in 3728; but both are grazing (the center of Jupiter would not appear to pass over the Sun to an observer at the center of Saturn). Jupiter's center last crossed the Sun in 86 BC; the next time comes in 7541. Jupiter will block from five to six percent of the Sun in those transits, more than any other transit involving two planets in the Solar System:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Jupiter_from_outer_planets
Here is a video of a simulation of the transit in 3728 AD.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)eppur_se_muova
(36,281 posts)I think we already knew that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot