Image: Saturn askew
Wednesday, April 6, 2016 - 05:10
in Astronomy & Space
As a convention for public release, Cassini images of Saturn are generally oriented so that Saturn appears north up, but the spacecraft views the planet and its expansive rings from all sorts of angles. Here, a half-lit Saturn sits askew as tiny Dione (698 miles or 1,123 kilometers across) looks on from lower left. And the terminator, which separates night from day on Saturn, is also askew, owing to the planet's approach to northern summer solstice. As a result, the planet's northern pole is in sunlight all throughout Saturn's day, much as it would be on Earth during northern summer.