[attach id=289246 size="medium"]A top-down view of Saturn shot by the Cassini probe which currently orbits this giant planet. Photo: NASA/JPL/SSI/Gordan Ugarkovic[/attach]

Less than a month ago, on October 10, the Cassini robotic probe was located at an excellent position above the planet Saturn.

Its cameras thus shot several raw images that were assembled together by the Croat amateur astronomer Gordan Ugarkovic to create a unique image, which he posted on the online forum Unmanned Spaceflight.

The Cassini probe changed the inclination of its orbit in May 2012, precisely to view the polar region of Saturn from a better angle. Currently, its trajectory is inclined at 62 degrees in relation to the equator of Saturn (in line with the plane of its glorious rings). This allowed Saturn to be viewed from an angle that is not possible to see directly from the earth.

One can easily see the unusual hexagonal north polar vortex, the six-sided jet stream flowing around Saturn’s pole.

Saturn has thousands of rings made up of billions upon billions of tiny ice particles. They are immense – in fact, the very tiny void in the rings near the edge (known as the Encke gap) is around 325km in size. This is equal to the distance between Malta and Tunis.

Unfortunately, Saturn is currently located close to the sun, deep in the glow of sunset, and thus not visible until it re-emerges in a few months.

On the other hand, Venus (magnitude -4.4) shines brightly in the southwest during dusk, gradually moving higher in the sky.

For up-to-date information, visit the Astronomical Society’s Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/maltastro.

Alexei Pace is president of the Astronomical Society of Malta.

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