Figure 1 – Venus glimmering brightly through the rings of Saturn taken by the Cassini-Huygens satellite on November 10, 2012 from NASA and in the public domain.

As we have discussed before, the ultimate in robotic eyes are the cameras on our deep space probes. Among the most remarkable is Cassini-Huygens a Flagship-class NASA-ESA-ASI robotic spacecraft.  It was launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004 having in the meanwhile observed Jupiter and the heliosphere as well as tested Einstein’s theory of relativity.  Good stuff for a “mere” robot.

Cassini today continues to send back very remarkable images of Saturn.  So a visit to her photogallery at NASA is worthwhile and fun.  NASA recently released a wonderful image taken on November 10, 2012, which shows Venus glimmering brightly through Saturn’s marvelous rings.  These amazing robots continue to provide us with images better than anything we could ever image.  The distinction between science and art dims and we have only begun to scratch the face of the universe.  If these images exceed our wildest imaginings then these robotic eyes may truly be said to have extended the limits of our imaginations.