Cassini's images

The Cassini spaceship is orbiting Saturn for many year now and always manage to amaze. On the 19th of July Cassini will take a photograph of planet earth while Saturn blocks the sun. This will be a reproduction of the iconic photo from 2006 and a good chance to compare and see any difference. You can watch the 2006 photo in the following article together with many more photos of earth from space.
To celebrate the event I've collected some of the best photos of Cassini from 2012-2013. There many more and it is hard to choose from. Enjoy! Credit to all photographs is to NASA.

Saturn and Titan

Enceladus looks like a popped balloon.

Enceladus

A huge storm on Saturn

A huge storm on Saturn

A closeup of Enceladus. Jets of gases are vaporizing into outer space

A closeup of Enceladus

Two tiny moons: Prometheus and Pandora

Prometheus and Pandora

The surface of the moon Rhea. Rhea is one of the moons that can be seen with even a small telescope from earth.

Rhea

Is this river Nile? Might be an old river on the surface of Titan

Saturn in the dark. Saturn covers the Sun, but the rings are lighted and reflect light back on Saturn which gives an extraordinary result.

Saturn in the dark

Saturn

Saturn

Saturn shading its rings. Notice some tiny dot and the upper left area - a tiny moon.

Saturn shading its rings

This photo is the first photo of meteors not from Earth. Read more about these meteors.

Meteors striking Saturn

This is not Saturn. This is Titan with little moon Dione with the rings as a background.

Titan with little moon Dione

A vortex on Titan

A vortex on Titan

And from another angle

A vortex on Titan

And a closeup

A vortex on Titan

Saturn is blocking the sun. At the upper left a small dot. This is not Earth but Venus.

Venus from Saturn

Strange things happens on Saturn's north pole

Saturn's north pole

You probably remember the incredible transit of Venus (well the whole site started from it). Anyway this is a Venus transit from Saturn. Read more here.

Venus transit from Saturn

For further reading:
Saturn
More images from Cassini

Israel first satellite

Shavit 2 was the first satellite that Israel launched to space. The rocket launched on July 5th 1961 and Israel joined the distinguished "space club" a very short list of countries who are able to develop, build and launch a satellite by their own means ( in 1961 there were only 6 countries in the "club" : US, USSR, UK, Japan, Italy, France). The rocket itself was a very simple rocket with some instruments for meteorological research. the rocket was very small, but to make it look much bigger it was put on a high stand and photographed from a very low angel to look like one of the big American rockets. In fact its length was just about 4 meter.

Many of Israel VIP attended the historical launch. The prime minister and secretary of defnse, David Ben Gurion, his deputy Shimon Peres (Current presiodent of Israel) , Zvi Zur, Brigadir General and more.

History is funny as the only country to congratulate Israel for its achievement was Turkey. Nor the white house, neither the Kremlin (And the times were the hot days of the cold war) gave any official response.

Replica of Shavit 2 actual size: Photographed by: Tal Inbar

Israel ministry of Defense recently relieved the following video. Notice how big the rocket looks in the film (remember that the lower part is just a stand, not a real phase). The video is without sound so the usual roar of the launch is not heard. David Ben Gurion, hearing explanations and you might recognize Peres and Rabin in the film as well. 

The launch was a very important achievement for the new state of Israel only 13 years old.