Saturn Photos a Thrill to Behold

U.S. scientists were thrilled by photos sent back from space of Saturn and its rings.

Finally, here are the views that we’ve waited years for, said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. Sailing high above Saturn and seeing the rings spread out beneath us like a giant, copper medallion is like exploring an alien world we’ve never seen before. It just doesn’t look like the same place. It’s so utterly breathtaking, it almost gives you vertigo.

The images were captured over the last two months by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. NASA put black and white and color images, as well as a movie sequence, on its Web site, www.nasa.gov/cassini.

The mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.