Cassini was 69 million miles (111 million kilometers) from Saturn when it took the photograph. It is scheduled to arrive July 1, 2004 and start a four-year primary mission. It will begin sending images regularly in February.
"Already, we are seeing familiar and sharp details, like the structure in the Saturn B ring, the Encke gap in the outermost A ring and five of Saturn's icy satellites," said Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "And we are still very far away."
Data for the photograph was gathered last month and it was released early this morning.
More to come
Cassini cameras have better detectors than the Voyager cameras did, Porco said, so when the spacecraft gets closer to its target it should produce clearer and sharper views than have ever been seen of Saturn.
"You can expect a real visual feast," Porco told SPACE.com. She said a regular flow of images should start in mid- to late-February.
"We will have very finely detailed images of atmospheric features like storms and waves, ring details that will exceed anything we've seen before by a factor of three to four, and resolution on some of the Saturn satellites fine enough to see features the size of an apartment building, if there are any!" she said. "We will know so much more than we do now."
"I can't wait to dive in as we see it all unfold over the next few months," said Anthony DelGenio, an imaging team member from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
Cassini launched on Oct. 15, 1997. It took a circuitous route, looping by Venus twice, then around Earth, and in 2000 it swung past Jupiter. With each planet flyby, the spacecraft robbed a little orbital energy from the respective planet to gain speed. The scheme saves fuel and makes the mission less expensive.
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