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Subscribe to RSSNASA's Cassini spacecraft has been snapping stunning pictures of Saturn and its moons since 2004, allowing scientists to probe the ringed planet and its spheres like never before.
Now, Chris Abbas, a designer and director at Digital Kitchen in Seattle, Wash., has grabbed hundreds of the images and compiled them into this mesmerizing video set to music by Nine Inch Nails. Rings spin, the planet floats, stars and moons whizz by.
"I truly enjoy outer space," Abbas writes on the Vimeo website where the video is posted. "It's absolutely amazing that we now have the ability to send instruments out into the void of the universe to observe all sorts of interesting things."
To learn more about Cassini, check out NASA's mission website. More stories about the spacecraft and its discoveries are at the bottom of this post. Before you scroll down, however, there's one more bit of space-geek artistry to watch today.
From April, 2003 until August, 2006, the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope watched four parts of the sky as often as possible for a special type of supernova (called Type Ia supernovae) which are created by the thermonuclear detonation of one or more white-dwarf stars. These explosions are extremely energetic, and can be seen across vast distances in space.
This video, produced by astronomy graduate student Alex Harrison Parker from Canada's University of Victoria, gives a feel for what supernova — exploding, dying stars — sound like when hooked up to a grand piano or standup bass.
More information on how it was made and what it means is available from Discovery News.
More stories on Cassini and supernovae:
- Cassini zooms past two Saturn moons
- Saturn probe sends stunning ring views
- Cassini sees through Saturn's rough and tumble rings
- Cassini image confirms liquid on Saturn moon
- Saturn lightning superbolts revealed
- 10-year-old Canadian girl discovers a supernova
- Scientists identify brightest supernova
- Did supernova mark 17th century King's birth?
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
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Wickedly cool!
Definitely as good or better than anything Stanley Kubrick ever did!
Man, that would be so freaking cool to cruise around with Cassini for a few days or so and see what it sees!!! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't sleep the entire time for fear of missing something.
Awesome!