SATURN SEEN FROM FAR AND NEAR (STScI-PRC04-18)

FOR RELEASE: May 26, 2004

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC04-18a

SATURN SEEN FROM FAR AND NEAR

As Saturn grows closer through the eyes of the Cassini spacecraft, which
is hurtling toward a rendezvous with the ringed world on June 30 (July
1, Universal Time), both Cassini and the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space
Telescope snapped spectacular pictures of the planet and its magnificent
rings. Cassini is approaching Saturn at an oblique angle to the Sun and
from below the ecliptic plane. Cassini has a very different view of
Saturn than Hubble's Earth-centered view. For the first time,
astronomers can compare views of equal-sharpness of Saturn from two very
different perspectives. The view from Hubble, taken on March 22, 2004,
is so sharp that many individual Saturnian ringlets can be seen. When
Cassini returned its picture of Saturn on May 16, it was so close to the
planet that the Imaging Science Subsystem narrow-angle camera could not
fit the whole planet in its field-of-view. Cassini is still about 12.4
million miles (about 20 million kilometers) away and only 36 days from
reaching Saturn.

Hubble Photo Credit: NASA, ESA and Erich Karkoschka (University of
Arizona)
Cassini Photo Credit: NASA/JPL

To see and read more, please visit:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/18
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of
Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract
with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space
Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the
European Space Agency. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative
mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space
Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard
cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

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To see and read more, please visit:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/18
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

Surprisingly disappointing. The ACS/HRC image does not look any sharper
than the WFPC2 images released last year. Nice subtle details in the
atmosphere however. But where is the F-ring? Another puzzle: why does
the TIFF image have JPEG-like artifacts?