POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.binaries.images : Saturn view from Cassinni : Re: Saturn view from Cassinni Server Time
5 Nov 2024 12:39:49 EST (-0500)
  Re: Saturn view from Cassinni  
From: Slime
Date: 9 Aug 2005 18:02:21
Message: <42f927ed$1@news.povray.org>
> You never get to see shadows of Saturn's rings from earth because we're
> always looking at it face-on.  Saturn is always behind us.  Cassini
> approached Saturn from the side and therefore got to see the shadow.
We'll
> never see the shadow from earth.

Saturn is 9.54 AU away from the sun (Earth is 1), so the maximum possible
angle between our line of sight to Saturn and the incoming light direction
on Saturn is 2*asin(.5/8) = 7.2 degrees. So it should be possible to see a
sliver of the shadow when our orbits are in the right positions.

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]


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