NASA's Cassini Missions View Saturn

The "sixth rock from the Sun," Saturn, named after the Roman God, is the second largest planet in the Solar System following Jupiter.

Two things which set Saturn apart from other planets are its nine rings composed of ice particles along with some rocky debris and dust, as well as at least 62 moons. Saturn's atmosphere is composed of 96% hydrogen, 3% helium with traces of other gases.

The images below were captured by NASA's Cassini Missions, Equinox and Solstice. Four of the images are natural color and one is ultra-violet.

Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

 Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Colorado

 Credit: NASA/SSI/JPL/ESA

An intriguing planet, to be sure.

For many more images visit: NASA Saturn Cassini Images.

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Main Street One

NASA to the Extreme II - Image Captures

In 1993, NASA launched an infrared space observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST), formerly named the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF). The SST is the fourth and final of the NASA Great Observatories program.

NASA came through once again with spectacular images from deep space.

The beauty of the various images both Hubble and Spitzer have captured are magnified by the distance and space between our Earth and their locale.

Below are a sampling of Spitzer's captures.

Chaos at the Heart of Orion - NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

 Maffei 2 The Hidden Galaxy - NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Stellar Snowflake Cluster - NASA/JPL-Caltech/CfA

Constellation Scorpius - NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

The Infrared Helix -NASA / JPL-Caltech /Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

Supernova Remnant - NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

What more can be said than NASA and Spitzer have provided eye candy to those who appreciate the vastness, wonder and mysteries of space.

For an earlier blog post containing more space images from NASA visit: NASA to the Extreme.

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Main Street One