Saturn Stars In 'Outer Space,' Short Film Made From Cassini and Voyager Images (VIDEO)

It's almost hard to believe that "Outer Space," the two-minute film from Netherlands-based editor and director Sander van den Berg, was created using actual still images from NASA's Cassini and Voyager spacecraft.

The final product is a choreographed collection of images that is set to The Cinematic Orchestra's "That Home."

According to io9's Robert T. Gonzalez, "Ring gaps, moonlets, geysers, big red spots and littler red spots abound" in the film.

The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 twin spacecraft launched in 1977 and have explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as they made their way to the outer edges of the solar system, according to the Associated Press.

NASA announced in December that Voyager 1 was 11 billion miles from the sun and had entered what's called the "stagnation zone."

NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which is equipped with 12 instruments, launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004. The spacecraft's mission has been extended twice, and is currently scheduled to run through 2017.

On Tuesday, NASA announced that scientists analyzing data from Cassini had found half-mile sized objects colliding with one of Saturn's main rings, leaving behind "glittering trails" between 20 and 110 miles long .

Watch "Outer Space" At Top

Also on HuffPost:

GALLERY: PHOTOS OF SATURN AND ITS MOONS FROM THE CASSINI SPACECRAFT (All images and captions courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, unless otherwise noted.)

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• A crescent Enceladus appears with Saturn's rings in this Cassini spacecraft view of the moon.

• With giant Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering Cassini from the sun's blinding glare, the spacecraft viewed the rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world.

• This is an artist's concept of the Saturnian plasma sheet based on data from Cassini magnetospheric imaging instrument. It shows Saturn's embedded 'ring current,' an invisible ring of energetic ions trapped in the planet's magnetic field. Saturn is at the center, with the red 'donut' representing the distribution of dense neutral gas outside Saturn's icy rings. Beyond this region, energetic ions populate the plasma sheet to the dayside magnetopause filling the faintly sketched magnetic flux tubes to higher latitudes and contributing to the ring current. The plasma sheet thins gradually toward the nightside. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL

• A quartet of Saturn's moons, from tiny to huge, surround and are embedded within the planet's rings in this Cassini composition.

• This stunning false-color view of Saturn's moon Hyperion reveals crisp details across the strange, tumbling moon's surface. Differences in color could represent differences in the composition of surface materials. The view was obtained during Cassini's very close flyby on Sept. 26, 2005. Hyperion has a notably reddish tint when viewed in natural color. The red color was toned down in this false-color view, and the other hues were enhanced, in order to make more subtle color variations across Hyperion's surface more apparent.

• The colorful globe of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true color snapshot from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

• Vertical structures, among the tallest seen in Saturn's main rings, rise abruptly from the edge of Saturn's B ring to cast long shadows on the ring in this image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft two weeks before the planet's August 2009 equinox. Part of the Cassini Division, between the B and the A rings, appears at the top of the image, showing ringlets in the inner division.

• Flying past Saturn's moon Dione, Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet's rings.

• Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show that the sizes and patterns of dunes on Saturn's moon Titan vary as a function of altitude and latitude. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, and NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

• Saturn's small, potato-shaped moon Prometheus appears embedded within the planet's rings near the center of this Cassini spacecraft view while the larger moon Mimas orbits beyond the rings.

• The line of Saturn's rings disrupts the Cassini spacecraft's view of the moons Tethys and Titan.

• Although traveling at great speed, the Cassini spacecraft managed to capture this close view of Saturn's small moon Helene during a flyby on March 3, 2010. Saturn's atmosphere makes up the background of this composition.

• The Cassini spacecraft looks at a brightly illuminated Enceladus and examines the surface of the leading hemisphere of this Saturnian moon.

• Saturn's third-largest moon Dione can be seen through the haze of its largest moon, Titan, in this view of the two posing before the planet and its rings from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

• Saturn's moon Mimas peeks out from behind the night side of the larger moon Dione in this Cassini image captured during the spacecraft's Dec. 12, 2011, flyby of Dione.

• A quintet of Saturn's moons come together in the Cassini spacecraft's field of view for this portrait.

• The best view of Saturn's rings in the ultraviolet indicates there is more ice toward the outer part of the rings, than in the inner part, hinting at the origins of the rings and their evolution.

• NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained this unprocessed image on Dec. 12, 2011.

• Recent Cassini images of Saturn's moon Enceladus backlit by the sun show the fountain-like sources of the fine spray of material that towers over the south polar region. The image was taken looking more or less broadside at the 'tiger stripe' fractures observed in earlier Enceladus images. It shows discrete plumes of a variety of apparent sizes above the limb of the moon. The greatly enhanced and colorized image shows the enormous extent of the fainter, larger-scale component of the plume.

• NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained this unprocessed image on Dec. 12, 2011.

• Saturn sits nested in its rings of ice as Cassini once again plunges toward the graceful giant. This natural color mosaic was acquired by the Cassini spacecraft as it soared 39 degrees above the unilluminated side of the rings.

Comments

[Alexander Forbes]

05:52 PM on 04/29/2012

Marvelous! It looked like they also snuck in footage of Jupiter's Great Red Spot twirling counter-clockwise as the great planet spun around.

[Mailman]

10:09 AM on 04/29/2012

Beautiful!

[stacknef]

12:39 PM on 04/27/2012

very cool

[crankyCrackPot]

01:49 PM on 04/26/2012

MORE!!!!!
SHOW ME MORE!!!

Much better than what i see in my backyard telescope. :-)
FANTASTIC!!!

[Wall Str33t]

02:10 PM on 04/26/2012

http://vimeo.com/24410924

[crankyCrackPot]

02:26 PM on 04/26/2012

Much appreciated!

[Wall Str33t]

01:38 PM on 04/26/2012

Two of the happiest minutes of my life.

Just brilliant.

[macmanchgo]

09:33 AM on 04/26/2012

Time lapse is really the way to go on Outer Space movies! Lets see more! I am assuming the movie is made up from images taken from about the same place and angle after each orbit around the planet?

[adika3z]

09:13 AM on 04/26/2012

i like american JPL / NASA spacecrafts are the best high technology in the world,
ussr russia spacecraft is a cheap old weak technology and big failer

[lesleypalmer]

10:49 PM on 04/25/2012

Beautiful.

[Aleks Hunter]

06:12 PM on 04/25/2012

Anyone else feeling just a little smaller, a little less important?

[ny1989]

07:41 PM on 04/25/2012

its one of the major values of astronomy... its tremendously humbling. We are a medium sized planet in a typical solar system in a typical galaxy in an ever expanding and unconscionable large universe. Travelling at the fastest speeds achieved by the space shuttles (approximately 17,500 miles on reentry, far from feasible), would take over 160 thousand years, or three times the length of human civilization. Not to mention how much more we learn every day about the composition and structure of the universe (check out gravitational waves... truly awesome)

There is tremendous value in this. It helps put our place in the universe into perspective. It lets us off the hook to a certain degree in times of desperation (my decisions won't change the course of the universe as a whole), it humbles us in times of arrogance (you're not important in the scope of everything), and has the potential to push people away from the jingoistic, short sighted and idiotic worldview that pervades human civilization.

To quote the ever-eloquent Carl Sagan (see the video Pale Blue Dot if you want an awesome experience)

"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

[macmanchgo]

09:40 AM on 04/26/2012

I also find it humbling, but I don't see why the power brokers who seek to dominate the Earth would not simply see other Worlds to conquer.

[brutusmojo]

04:39 PM on 04/25/2012

amazingly beautiful view.good tune.

[antipodal2u]

01:32 PM on 04/25/2012

'Fascinating jim'

[ethiopia1a]

01:21 PM on 04/25/2012

Just some alien kids got a hold of daddy's UFO and are out joyriding.

[Mac1000]

12:24 PM on 04/25/2012

Whoa.

[Motorhead76]

12:23 PM on 04/25/2012

Saturn is the best vacation destination in the Solar System!

One day...

[ny1989]

07:52 PM on 04/25/2012

ehhh i'd go for Pluto... good for skiing. or maybe venus... we could use a new way to sun tan.

In reality, the only planet that is feasibly inhabitable in our universe is Mars. Its a bit too cold and a bit too small to naturally evolve an atmosphere, but we could easily colonize and potentially terraform the planet. The moons of jupiter, specifically Europa, also seem like a relatively viable opportunity, mainly because of the energy jupiter emits (in addition to the reflective energy from the sun) could potentially overcome the issues of powering a continuous settlement, as well as a pretty adequate supply of water (they have freaking ice volcanoes).

As for the actual planets... there's not much to visit. We would likely be incapable of seeing through the atmospheres of places like saturn or jupiter... plus there would likely be little to land on. On top of that, it would be hard to escape the gravitational pull of the gas giants.

The solar system, galaxy and universe are unquestionably cool. Hopefully, this can expand to more commercial pursuits

[Thrills Thrillington]

11:58 AM on 04/25/2012

Great footage and nice music