Photo of the Day

The Day the Earth Smiled

Thursday 15 October 2026

The Cassini spacecraft launched on 15 October 1997.

Saturn as a dark disc backlit by the hidden Sun, its main rings glowing gold inside wide, faint blue outer rings — Spacecraft mosaic · 19 July 2013

Cassini slipped into Saturn's shadow and photographed the planet backlit by the Sun. The Sun is hidden behind Saturn, which is why the rings glow. Look lower right: Earth is the single pale dot beyond the rings.

Fun facts

NASA announced the shot in advance and invited people everywhere to go outside and wave at Saturn at the moment it was taken. source ↗
Cassini reached Saturn in 2004 and spent 13 years there. source ↗
In 2017 it was deliberately flown into Saturn so it could never crash into and contaminate moons that might support life, like Enceladus. source ↗
Saturn's main rings are hundreds of thousands of kilometers wide but in many places only about 10 meters thick. source ↗

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Licence: Public domain
Source: Wikimedia Commons NASA Photojournal PIA17172