Cassini Mosaic of Jupiter: True-Color Spectacle

This composite image of Jupiter, a mosaic of 27 images taken ten years ago by the Cassini spacecraft, is a true-color image, meaning that it’s a fair approximation of what you would see if you were to visit the Jovian system (buyer beware: many astronomical images come in false colors; interplanetary probes and telescopes tend to see in more colors than we do). But what really strikes me about it is this: when this image was taken, Cassini was 6.2 million miles from Jupiter�its closest approach to the gas giant, some 26 times the distance between Earth and the Moon. Ten years on, Cassini is still doing science in the Jovian outer solar system; it has 53 flybys of Saturn’s moon Titan scheduled before the end of its mission in 2017. For more on Cassini, visit here.