Saturn Is Alive, No CGI

By Caleb A. Scharf | April 26, 2012 | 6

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It seems that the Saturnian system just keeps on giving when it comes to amazing imagery. Of course it helps to have a $3 billion space mission in place like Cassini to record everything going on. From Saturn The Movie, to The Austere Beauty Of Other Worlds, and Raw Footage From An Alien World, I’ve posted quite a few of Cassini’s pictorial successes. But now comes what just might be the one to top them all. The director and editor Sander van den Berg based in The Netherlands has put together a huge number of Cassini still images to produce a movie that covers a remarkable amount of what’s going on in the Saturnian ‘hood – including some incredible shots of moonlets interacting with the rings, storms and circulations on Saturn itself, and the endless to-ing and fro-ing of moons, light, and shadow.

It’s quite astonishing, and brings this world and its satellites to life as if they were all part of a busy, busy little protozoa, floating its way through a vast and dark cosmic ocean. So enjoy “Outer Space”.

About the Author: Caleb Scharf is the director of Columbia University's multidisciplinary Astrobiology Center. He has worked in the fields of observational cosmology, X-ray astronomy, and more recently exoplanetary science. His latest book is 'Gravity's Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos', and he is working on 'The Copernicus Complex' (both from Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux.) Follow on Twitter @caleb_scharf.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Tags: astronomy, cassini, moonlets, moons, nasa, outer space, planetary science, sander van den berg, saturn, saturn movie, saturn rings, solar system, space

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6 Comments

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1. jtdwyer 6:52 am 04/27/2012

Absolutely fantastic! And it’s all for free with the purchase of one Cassini mission!
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2. caleb_scharf 8:52 am 04/27/2012

One Cassini mission that costs 0.5% of Apple’s market capital…
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3. jtdwyer 11:29 am 04/27/2012

caleb_scharf – Point taken!
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4. noz1992 2:34 pm 04/27/2012

Hey wait a second! I thought I saw some Jupiter in there. I feel cheated now.
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5. caleb_scharf 2:40 pm 04/27/2012

Yeah, there is a bit of Jupiter – although taken by Cassini en route to Saturn a whole 12 years ago!
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6. RCWhitmyer 4:57 pm 04/30/2012

Watching videos of the rings reminded me of watching a vinyl LP spinning.
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