NASA spacecraft photographs Venus as seen from Saturn [PHOTOS]

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured two stunning new photos of Venus as seen from Saturn. The $3.2 billion Cassini mission is a joint effort among NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency to orbit the ringed planet and its moons, SPACE.com reported. The spacecraft launched in 1997 and arrived in Saturn in 2004. Cassini is due to come back to Earth on 2017.

For this image, in which earth's sister planet is seen through Saturn's iconic rings, Cassini took the photos at about 489,000 miles from Saturn and 880 million miles from Venus. Each pixel in the image covers about 28 miles.

{b:Venus appears as a bright dot shining through Saturn's rings in this image, taken on Nov. 10, 2012, by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Cassini was about 498,000 miles from the ringed planet at the time. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute}

In this shot, Venus appears between Saturn's incandescent curving limb and its G ring. The scale from this view is 20 miles per pixel.

Venus gleams as a bright dot between Saturn's limb and its G ring near the top of this photo, which NASA's Cassini spacecraft took on Jan. 4, 2013. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via Space.com