The NASA Earth Observatory site is holding a photo contest to celebrate
and popularize their 10th anniversary. It is a contest in which
users vote for their favorite images-of-the-day. Here's my
favorite:
This is an image from the
href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html">Cassini
mission; it's a view of the earth, with the rings of Saturn in the
foreground.
This beautiful image of Saturn and its rings looks more
like an artist's creation than a real image, but in fact, the image is
a composite (layered image) made from 165 images taken by the
wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft over nearly three hours on
September 15, 2006. Scientists created the color in the image by
digitally compositing ultraviolet, infrared, and clear-filter images
and then adjusting the final image to resemble natural color.
See the other contestants, and vote for your favorite
href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/vote_finalists.php?src=eoa">here.
Note: The Boston Globe has a whole series of Saturn photos from the
mission
href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/cassinis_continued_mission.html">here.