just because

Sometimes even the best Hollywood image makers have nothing on the real thing.

In a splendid portrait created by light and gravity, Saturn's lonely moon Mimas is seen against the cool, blue-streaked backdrop of Saturn's northern hemisphere. Delicate shadows cast by the rings arc gracefully across the planet, fading into darkness on Saturn's night side.

Whole thing, including a link to a high-res version, here.

As I've discussed before, NASA publicity still are not always quite what they seem. What shows in these images as luminous blues and purples and greens are often renderings of wavelengths invisible to the naked eye. But this image is almost what you would see, were you to hitch a ride on Cassini: it's a composite of visible-spectrum images taken with red, green and blue filters.

And now it's my newest workstation wallpaper image. (Via Rand Simberg)