It may look like a speck of dust on the camera lens but the tiny,
pale blue dot in this photo is Earth, the farthest away it has ever
been seen.
The picture was taken by ultra-highpowered cameras on board the
Cassini spacecraft, which is orbiting Saturn nearly 1.5billion km
(930million miles) from our planet.
'Nothing has greater power to alter our perspective of ourselves
and our place in the cosmos than these images of Earth we collect
from faraway places like Saturn,' said Carolyn Porco, who is in
charge of analysing Cassini images at the Space Science Institute
in Boulder, Colorado.
The Cassini probe a joint mission between Nasa and the European
Space Agency was launched in 1997 and is spending four years
examining Saturn.
Yesterday, scientists revealed that the craft had also taken
pictures of a new ring around Saturn a faint trail of particles
just visible between some of its better-known rings.
Cassini caught sight of the ring and other rare features when the
Sun passed directly behind Saturn and provided bright backlight to
the rings.
Saturn has 47 known moons and at least seven rings.
