The planet Earth is going to have its picture taken next month.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced in a press release Tuesday that their Cassini spacecraft would be taking a photo of Saturn and its rings while being back-lit by the sun. The Earth will take up just about one-and-a-half pixels in the bottom right corner.
"While Earth will be only about a pixel in size from Cassini's vantage point 1.44 billion kilometers (898 million miles) away, the team is looking forward to giving the world a chance to see what their home looks like from Saturn," Linda Spilker, JPL's Cassini project scientist, told the Register.
With Saturn covering the sun from view and being lit from behind, the planet will appear dark, but its rings will not. Scientists expect to see the planet and its famous rings clearly.
JPL's press release said the main goal of the mosaic will be "to look at the more diffuse rings that encircle Saturn and check for change over time."
Cassini took a similar photo of Saturn in 2006 and will be compared to this most recent photo. Another thing the scientists will look at is Earth's progression over seven years and one Saturanian season.
"Ever since we caught sight of the Earth among the rings of Saturn in September 2006 in a mosaic that has become one of Cassini's most beloved images, I have wanted to do it all over again, only better," Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute told the Register.
Cassini will begin its photo session at 2:27 p.m. PDT and it will last until 2:42 p.m. (21:27 to 21:42 UTC). Jane Houston Jones will be operating a blog post that will direct anyone who wants to know where to look in the sky.
JPL is encouraging people from all over the world to their event that they are calling "Wave at Saturn." The press release said anyone interested may take a photo of themselves waving towards Saturn during the time of the photo session. Afterwards, people can send their photos to their Wave at Saturn Flickr page, their Facebook event page or post them to Twitter and use the hashtag #WaveAtSaturn.
JPL plans to make a collage of the images, but only if they receive enough material.