From Astronomy Picture of the Day, for 15/2/18, another wonderful photograph from the Cassini mission to Saturn, this one showing the moon Enceladus outgassing plumes of ice.

At bottom right of middle just below the edge-on rings of Saturn can be seen the small moon Pandora.

A fine video – as shown in Astronomy Picture of the Day for 11/9/2017 and made by amalgamating individual pictures – of one of the Cassini probe’s passes through the Saturn system.

5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation – First 1 minute of footage from In Saturn's Rings from Stephen van Vuuren on Vimeo.

A stunning picture of Saturn’s rings backlit by the sun from yesterday‘s Astronomy Picture of the Day. And between them the spot of light is Earth with the tiny pinprick to its left, the Moon.

This is a view that would have been difficult to imagine seeing when I was a lad.

Nasa’s Cassini probe has produced an intriguing close-up view of Saturn’s moon Pan.

This photograph is today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Pan orbits inside the the Encke Gap of Saturn’s A-ring but is an odd object indeed.

Astronomy Picture of the Day was 20 years old on Jun 16^th. It has been on a bit of a roll recently.

The Pinwheel Galaxy (Jun 14^th):-

The Black Eye galaxy (Jun 18^th):-

On 23^rd Jun there was this star bubble round Sharpless 2-308:-

This is a picture of Zeta Ophiuchi (Jul 5^th) which is travelling to the left at 24 kilometres per second thus causing the bow-shock in the interstellar dust as shown:-

The next day gave us this picture of clouds near Rho Ophiuchi

Then Jul 8^th had this stunning scene of Dione, Saturn and Enceladus (Saturn is visible only as a faint arc and its rings are edge-on):-

Fly-over Ceres, Jun 10^th, a composite of still pictures:-

It’s exciting times for NASA as New Horizons is getting very close to Pluto. See yesterday’s picture:-

Wonderful stuff.

This sequence appeared on The Daily Galaxy on Tuesday 4/2/14.

The above is a photo of the Earth and Moon as taken from the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn.

A slightly different view is given on yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.

The photo was taken on July 19^th.

The JPL site (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) has more.

This is Methone, one of Saturn’s moons, as shown in Astronomy Picture of the Day 6/11/12.

What makes it strange is its apparent smoothness. Most celestial bodies in the Solar System outwith the gas giants and the Sun – including Earth – are cratered. Not only is Methone’s unpock-marked surface unusual, its egg-like shape is puzzling. As a rule small celestial objects are irregular in shape.

Well, Saturnlight in the same sense as moonlight. Both “shine” by reflecting sunlight.

This was Astronomy Picture of the Day for 8/2/12.

The yellow tinge is from Saturn’s cloud bands. True sunlight illuminates Enceladus on the right side of the picture.

Enceladus may have an ocean of water beneath its icy surface. Occasionally plumes of water vapour/ice are ejected through cracks in the ice.

Yes, Astronomy Picture of the Day again (22/1/12.)

This is really weird. It’s a storm on Saturn, located at its north pole. The source as usual is the Cassini probe.

Quite how a storm can result in a hexagonal pattern is puzzling. More puzzling still is how it has lasted – since it was discovered in the 1980s flypasts.

This is the same storm in infrared (from APOD of 3/4/07.)

This links to a photo of hexagonal cloud forms on Earth, the nearest similar meteorological phenomenon.

Here’s a time-lapse film of Saturn’s north polar storm. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.