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| This simulated view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013, around the time Cassini will take Earth's picture. Cassini will be about 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away from Earth at the time. That distance is nearly 10 times the distance from the sun to Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- Two NASA spacecraft, one studying the Saturn
system, the other observing Mercury, are maneuvering into place to take
pictures of Earth on July 19 and 20.
Cassini Saturn Earth Photo July 19
The image taken from the Saturn system by NASA's Cassini spacecraft
will occur between 5:27 and 5:42 Eastern Daylight Times (2:27 and 2:42 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, or 21:27
and 21:47 UTC) on Friday, July 19, 2013.
Cassini will be nearly 900 million miles
(nearly 1.5 billion kilometers) away from Earth. NASA is encouraging
the public to look and wave in the direction of Saturn at the time of
the portrait and share their pictures via the Internet.
The Cassini Earth portrait is part of a more extensive mosaic -- or
multi-image picture -- of the Saturn system as it is backlit by the sun.
The viewing geometry highlights the tiniest of ring particles and will
allow scientists to see patterns within Saturn's dusty rings. Processing
of the Earth images is expected to take a few days, and processing of
the full Saturn system mosaic will likely take several weeks.
MESSENGER Mercury Earth Photo July 20
Inspired in part by the Cassini team's plans to obtain a picture of
Earth, scientists reexamined the planned observations of NASA's
MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury. They realized Earth is
coincidentally expected to appear in some images taken in a search for
natural satellites around Mercury on July 19 and 20. Those images will
be taken at 7:49 a.m., 8:38 a.m. and 9:41 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (4:49 a.m., 5:38 a.m.
and 6:41 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, or 11:49, 12:38, and 13:41 UTC) on both days.
Parts
of Earth not illuminated in the Cassini images, including all of Europe,
the Middle East and Central Asia, will appear illuminated in the
MESSENGER images. MESSENGER's images also will take a few days to
process prior to release.
