Images Dated 18th December 2003

Two views of Saturn

Saturn. Two images of the planet Saturn with its rings and several moons. In the upper frame Saturn is seen with its ring edge-on and nearly invisible; the dark band on Saturn is the ring's shadow. Saturn's largest moon Titan (at left) is also forming a shadow on the planet. Four smaller moons are clustered at right; from left to right they are: Mimas, Tethys, Janus and Enceladus. In the lower frame is Saturn with its rings tilted. Just outside the main ring is the thin, faint F- ring which is normally invisible from Earth. The moons Tethys (at left) and Dione (at right) also appear. Image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

© NASA/ESA/STSCI/E.KARKOSCHKA, U.ARIZONA/ SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Computer image of the death of the dinosaurs

Dinosaur extinction. Computer enhanced image depicting the extinction of the dinosaurs. A Gasosaurus constructus dinosaur skeleton is seen with a falling comet or meteorite. Dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period. Their disappearance has been partly blamed on a comet or meteorite striking Earth. This event is known as the "K/T impact" because debris from it forms a boundary in sediments between the Cretaceous (K) and Tertiary (T) geological periods. The K/T impact would have thrown large amounts of debris into the atmosphere, blocking the warmth of the Sun and altering the global climate

© MEHAU KULYK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY