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What it is : Saturn , the seventh satellite from the sun , as seen byNASA ’s Voyager 2 ballistic capsule
When it was taken : Aug. 11 , 1981
Voyager 2 took this image of Saturn on Aug. 11, 1981, when the spacecraft was 9.1 million miles from Earth.
Where it is:886 million miles ( 1.4 billion kilometers ) from the Lord’s Day — 9.5 prison term the Earth - Sunday aloofness
Why it ’s so extra : look at 42 years ago this month , this false - color imagefrom NASA ’s Voyager 2 probe demonstrate the convective clouds and storms in Saturn ’s northerly hemisphere . Visible on the right side of the image are the moons Dione and Enceladus , the latter of which recent observations from theJames Webb Space Telescopeshow isspraying huge plume of watery vaporfar into space .
The double was taken 9 million miles ( 15 million km ) from Earth , just as Voyager 2 draw near the ringed satellite , using the spacecraft ’s VG ISS Narrow Angle instrument . The false - color image was foregather from ultraviolet , reddish blue and greenish images with filters used to make them visible to the human eye . If you look beneath the yellow circle of clouds ( which , in world , would be livid ) , you ’ll see a unripened office ( which is actually brown ) that represents a violent storm . Voyager 2 measured winds blowing at Saturn ’s equator at a thumping 1,100 mph ( 1,770 km / h ) .
Voyager 2 was n’t the first probe to prototype Saturn . That distinction conk to Pioneer 11 , one of NASA ’s firstsolar systemprobes , which set in motion in 1973 on a delegacy to analyze Jupiter , Saturn and the asteroid belt as a guide for the Voyager mission .
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Nor was Voyager 2 the first of the two Voyager probes to photograph the ringed planet . Its twin , Voyager 1 , reach Saturn in November 1980 , while Voyager 2 bring down nine month later , make its closest approach on Aug. 26 , 1981 . However , because Voyager 2 had more sensitive photographic camera , it was capable to detect a lot more features in Saturn ’s turbulent atmosphere , allot toNASA .
How to see it in the night sky : Now is the perfect prison term to see Saturn , but to get any sense of its rings , you ’ll need agood telescope . The ringed satellite is currently at its biggest , hopeful and best for the year , having reach confrontation ( when Earth is between it and the sun ) on Aug. 27 . Saturn is presently in the constellation Aquarius and rising in the east at dusk .
