It’s hard to believe that the Cassini spacecraft has been in orbit around Saturn for nearly a decade now, returning one amazing image of the ringed world and its moons after another. The images are nothing short of breathtaking, but often only become so after some careful work has been done by humans here on earth to remove artifacts, add colors, and general image processing that must be done to make sense of astronomical data.
But there’s a kind of gritty beauty in the raw, unprocessed images as well, so when filmmaker Fabio Di Donato synced them to Shostakovich – Jazz Suite No.2: VI. Waltz 2, the result is a thing of beauty:
Around Saturn from fabio di donato on Vimeo.I’ve been watching this video over and over again for the last several days and every time I do, I see something new in it. The intricate patterns of the ring system, it’s outer F-ring being deformed by Prometheus, Mimas floating by, the spongy texture of Hyperion, and the eye of Iapetus give the feel that the moons of the Saturn system are all in a kind of cosmic dance.
And what a beautiful dance it is! The whole thing looks like something directed by Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch using a silent film-era movie camera.
The whole video is a joy to watch, and a beautiful portrait of exotic, alien worlds right here in our cosmic front yard.
