NASA’s New Picture of Saturn from the Cassini Spacecraft is Incredible

In “you won’t believe it’s real” news, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day brings us an image of Saturn that looks like really convincing computer graphics. Amazingly, it’s a real image of the planet brought to us by the Cassini spacecraft that is now orbiting Saturn.

In the picture, you can see Saturn from above its North Pole and the shadow it casts on its rings, which we’d never see from here, because we always see it from the side during daytime.

They’ve also got links to some older close-up pictures that show some things in greater detail, but the full view shot of the whole planet is one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen.

(via NASA APOD, image via Gordon Ugarkovic)

Meanwhile in related links

• The Sarcastic Rover filled in for NASA during their painful shutdown absence
• NASA still managed to fling a satellite to Jupiter while they were out of commission
• They also take pictures of things that look like space-sperm