Galerie de photos des anneaux de la planète Saturne

<h1>PIA08253: Saturn Shine</h1><div class="PIA08253" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This view looks down onto the unlit side of Saturn's ringplane. It nicely shows a near-arm/far-arm brightness asymmetry in the B ring: The near arm of the B ring (in the lower half of the image) is notably darker from this viewing geometry than is the far arm (above).</p><p>Imaging scientists believe this to be a manifestation of the reflection of light from the disk of Saturn falling predominantly on the far arm of the rings. (At the time this image was taken, Cassini was more or less on the dark side of the planet.) As the B ring is the thickest part of Saturn's rings, it scatters less sunlight from below, and reflects more Saturn shine from above, than either the A or C rings, making the effect look more dramatic in the B ring.</p><p>Two small moons appear in this scene as well: Atlas (32 kilometers, or 20 miles across) is visible above and left of center and outside the A ring; Pandora (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across) can be seen near upper right beyond the F ring. Between the two moons lie multiple clumps of material in the F ring.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 25, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1 million kilometers (600,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 128 degrees. Image scale is 58 kilometers (36 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08253" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08253: Saturn Shine sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08253: Saturn Shine sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08253: Saturn Shine
<h1>PIA08255: Penumbral Fade</h1><div class="PIA08255" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>As the particles comprising Saturn's A ring slip into the planet's shadow, they find themselves briefly in the penumbra of Saturn's shadow. In this very narrow region along the edge of the shadow, part (but not all) of the Sun is still visible around the side of the planet, creating only a partial shadow there and making the shadow edge look fuzzy.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 26, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 9 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08255" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08255: Penumbral Fade sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08255: Penumbral Fade sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08255: Penumbral Fade
<h1>PIA08257: Encke Waves</h1><div class="PIA08257" lang="en" style="width:624px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The Encke gap displays gentle waves in its inner and outer edges that are caused by gravitational tugs from the small moon Pan. These scalloped edges were captured in a dramatic image taken by Cassini during its insertion into Saturn orbit in 2004.</p><p>The Encke gap is a 325-kilometer (200-mile) wide division in Saturn's outer A ring. Pan (26 kilometers, or 16 miles across) orbits squarely in the center of this gap.</p><p>The original image was stretched in the horizontal direction by a factor of four to exaggerate the amplitude of the waves, then reduced to half size and cropped to focus on the gap.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 23, 2006 at a distance of approximately 290,000 kilometers (180,000 miles) from Saturn. Scale in the original image was 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08257" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08257: Encke Waves sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08257: Encke Waves sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08257: Encke Waves
<h1>PIA08259: Disturbances by Prometheus</h1><div class="PIA08259" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The clumpy disturbed appearance of the brilliant F ring constantly changes. The irregular structure of the ring is due, in large part, to the gravitational perturbations on the ring material by one of Saturn's moons, Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across).</p><p>Interior to the F ring, the A ring bears a striking resemblance to a classic grooved, vinyl record. Visible here are the Keeler gap (42 kilometers, or 26 miles wide) and the Encke gap (325 kilometers, or 200 miles wide).</p><p>The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 862 nanometers. The view was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 26, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 141 degrees. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08259" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08259: Disturbances by Prometheus sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08259: Disturbances by Prometheus sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08259: Disturbances by Prometheus
<h1>PIA08262: The Ring Sculptor</h1><div class="PIA08262" lang="en" style="width:301px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Prometheus zooms across the Cassini spacecraft's field of view, attended by faint streamers and deep gores in the F ring. This movie sequence of five images shows the F ring shepherd moon shaping the ring's inner edge.</p><p>Note that the faint ringlet coincident with the orbit of Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) decreases sharply in brightness behind the moon in its path. The normally twisted-looking F ring core is overexposed in the images, causing its appearance to be more uniform than it usually is.</p><p>The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 11, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.2 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 162 degrees. Image scale is 13 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><p>Note: The size of the Full-Res TIFF for the still image is 609 samples x 301 lines.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08262" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08262: The Ring Sculptor sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08262: The Ring Sculptor sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08262: The Ring Sculptor
<h1>PIA08265: Saturn Hides the Rings</h1><div class="PIA08265" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Saturn's B and C rings disappear behind the immense planet. Where they meet the limb, the rings appear to bend slightly owing to upper-atmospheric refraction.</p><p>Crenulations --irregularly wavy or serrated features -- in the planet's clouds denote the locations of turbulent belt/zone boundaries.</p><p>The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 728 nanometers. The view was obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 16, 2006 at a distance of approximately 256,000 kilometers (159,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 12 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08265" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08265: Saturn Hides the Rings sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08265: Saturn Hides the Rings sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08265: Saturn Hides the Rings
<h1>PIA08267: Surging Onward</h1><div class="PIA08267" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p><a href="/archive/PIA08267.gif"></a><br />Click on the image for movie of<br /> Surging Onward</p><p>A brilliant spot of sunlight, the opposition effect, travels outward across the rings as the Cassini spacecraft orbits Saturn. This surge in ring brightness is created around the point directly opposite the Sun from the spacecraft. </p><p>This movie sequence of 29 images shows the opposition surge moving from the outer B ring, across the sparsely populated Cassini Division and onto the A ring. From Cassini's perspective, the rings are seen projected onto the planet where the ring shadows can be seen through the rings. This perspective, including rings and ring shadows, changes continuously during the sequence, giving the false impression that the ring features themselves are changing.</p><p>This image sequence was taken over 15 minutes on Aug. 16, 2006. The images were acquired in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 253,000 kilometers (157,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 15 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08267" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08267: Surging Onward sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08267: Surging Onward sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08267: Surging Onward
<h1>PIA08270: The Beauty of Night</h1><div class="PIA08270" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Saturn's shadow cuts sharply across the rings in this remarkable night side view.</p><p>The planet's northern latitudes are in darkness in the upper portion of this scene, while the southern reaches are bathed in ringshine. On the left sunlight filters through the rings, and on the right the rings are blocking the reflected ringshine in the shadow of Saturn. The overexposed, sunlit crescent at lower left marks the transition from Saturnian day to night.</p><p>Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) hovers below center -- a tiny bauble ornamenting the ringed giant.</p><p>The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on August 19, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Mimas and 1.7 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 92 kilometers (57 miles) per pixel on Mimas and 103 kilometers (64 miles) on Saturn.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08270" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08270: The Beauty of Night sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08270: The Beauty of Night sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08270: The Beauty of Night
<h1>PIA08271: Shadow and Shade</h1><div class="PIA08271" lang="en" style="width:714px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This moody true color portrait of Saturn shows a world that can, at times, seem as serene and peaceful as it is frigid and hostile. Saturn's unlit-side rings embrace the planet while their shadows caress the northern hemisphere.</p><p>Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) is a mere speck below the rings, just left of the terminator. The view was obtained from about 15 degrees above the ringplane as Cassini continued its climb to higher orbital inclinations.</p><p>Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The image was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 18, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 137 degrees. Image scale is 76 kilometers (47 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08271" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08271: Shadow and Shade sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08271: Shadow and Shade sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08271: Shadow and Shade
<h1>PIA08275: So Much to See</h1><div class="PIA08275" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This wide and sweeping view of the sunlit rings of Saturn takes in the impressive variety in their structure -- from the clumpy and perennially intriguing F ring to the many waves, ringlets and gaps in the A and B rings and the Cassini Division in between.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2006 at a distance of approximately 640,000 kilometers (397,000 miles) from Saturn. The view was acquired from about 10 degrees below the ringplane. Image scale on the sky at the distance of Saturn is 35 kilometers (22 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08275" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08275: So Much to See sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08275: So Much to See sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08275: So Much to See
<h1>PIA08277: Encke Structure</h1><div class="PIA08277" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Although the embedded moon Pan is nowhere to be seen, there is a bright clump-like feature visible here, within the Encke Division. Also discernable are periodic brightness variations along the outer (right side) gap edge.</p><p>See <a href="/catalog/PIA07528">PIA07528</a> for further information about Pan, the Encke Gap and its ringlets.</p><p>The view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 17 degrees below the ringplane.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2006 at a distance of approximately 421,000 kilometers (261,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale on the sky at the distance of Saturn is 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08277" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08277: Encke Structure sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08277: Encke Structure sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08277: Encke Structure
<h1>PIA08279: Two Sculptors</h1><div class="PIA08279" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Although difficult to see at first, more than one moon is at work sculpting Saturn's rings in this view from the Cassini spacecraft.</p><p>Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) is more or less obvious just inside the perturbed F ring. But in the Keeler Gap, just inside the bright A ring edge, lurks Daphnis (7 kilometers, or 4.3 miles across). The tiny moon and its attendant waves in the gap edges create a slight brightening of the gap at center. </p><p>This image is a wide-angle view taken concurrently with the higher resolution view seen in <a href="/catalog/PIA07809">PIA07809</a>.</p><p>This view looks toward the lit side of the rings from about 17 degrees below the ringplane.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2006 at a distance of approximately 422,000 kilometers (262,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale on the sky at the distance of Saturn is 22 kilometers (13 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08279" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08279: Two Sculptors sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08279: Two Sculptors sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08279: Two Sculptors
<h1>PIA08281: Light from a Flickering Star</h1><div class="PIA08281" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The Cassini spacecraft looks through the dense B ring toward a distant star in an image from a recent stellar occultation observation. These observations point the camera toward a star whose brightness is well known. Then, as Cassini watches the rings pass in front, the star's light fluctuates, providing information about the concentrations of ring particles within the various radial features in the rings.</p><p>This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 35 degrees above the ringplane. The star's image is partly saturated, causing the vertical lines that extend up and down.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 26, 2006 at a distance of approximately 543,000 kilometers (338,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 106 degrees. Image scale is about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08281" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08281: Light from a Flickering Star sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08281: Light from a Flickering Star sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08281: Light from a Flickering Star
<h1>PIA08282: The Color of Darkness</h1><div class="PIA08282" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Sunlight filters through Saturn's rings in sepia tones in this artful view from the Cassini spacecraft of the dark side of the rings. Those rays from the sun directly reflected from the lit side of the rings onto the planet strike and illuminate the night-side southern hemisphere.</p><p>The densely populated B ring blocks much of the Sun's light and thus looks quite dark.</p><p>Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) is a mere sliver below left.</p><p>Unprocessed wide-angle camera images taken in a high-phase viewing geometry generally contain stray light artifacts. These have largely been removed from this image by computer image processing.</p><p>Cassini was about 3 degrees above the ringplane when this image was obtained on Sept. 6, 2006. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were taken using the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 154 degrees. Image scale is 106 kilometers (66 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08282" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08282: The Color of Darkness sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08282: The Color of Darkness sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08282: The Color of Darkness
<h1>PIA08283: Flickering Aldebaran #1</h1><div class="PIA08283" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The Cassini spacecraft took a series of images on Sept. 9, 2006 as it watched the bright red giant star Aldebaran slip behind Saturn's rings. This type of observation is known as a stellar occultation and uses a star whose brightness is well known. As Cassini watches the rings pass in front of the star, the star's light fluctuates, providing information about the concentrations of ring particles within the various radial features in the rings.</p><p>This view shows the Encke Gap (325 kilometers, or 200 miles wide) and the faint ringlets which share the gap with the embedded moon Pan. The view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 19 degrees below the ringplane. Bright Aldebaran is overexposed, creating thin vertical lines on its image.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2006 at a distance of approximately 359,000 kilometers (233,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale on the sky at the distance of Saturn is 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08283" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08283: Flickering Aldebaran #1 sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08283: Flickering Aldebaran #1 sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08283: Flickering Aldebaran #1
<h1>PIA08285: Flickering Aldebaran #2</h1><div class="PIA08285" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Cassini took a series of images on Sept. 9, 2006 as it watched the bright red giant star Aldebaran slip behind Saturn's rings. This type of observation is known as a stellar occultation and uses a star whose brightness is well known. As Cassini watches the rings pass in front, the star's light fluctuates, providing information about the concentrations of ring particles within the various radial features in the rings.</p><p>This view looks toward the sunlit side of the outer A ring (just interior to the Encke Gap) from about 19 degrees below the ringplane. Bright Aldebaran is over exposed, creating thin vertical lines on its image.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2006 at a distance of approximately 358,000 kilometers (223,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale on the sky at the distance of Saturn is 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08285" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08285: Flickering Aldebaran #2 sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08285: Flickering Aldebaran #2 sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08285: Flickering Aldebaran #2
<h1>PIA08287: Flickering Aldebaran #3</h1><div class="PIA08287" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Cassini took a series of images on Sept. 9, 2006 as it watched the bright red giant star Aldebaran slip behind Saturn's rings. This type of observation is known as a stellar occultation and uses a star whose brightness is well known. As Cassini watches the rings pass in front, the star's light fluctuates, providing information about the concentrations of ring particles within the various radial features in the rings.</p><p>Here, Cassini watches the star through the part of the rings masked by Saturn's shadow. The view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 20 degrees below the ringplane. Bright Aldebaran is over exposed, creating thin vertical lines on its image.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2006 at a distance of approximately 351,000 kilometers (218,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale on the sky at the distance of Saturn is 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08287" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08287: Flickering Aldebaran #3 sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08287: Flickering Aldebaran #3 sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08287: Flickering Aldebaran #3
<h1>PIA08288: The Spoke Search</h1><div class="PIA08288" lang="en" style="width:504px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>A group of bright spokes tightly cluster together in Saturn's B ring. The spokes seen here generally all exhibit the same degree of shearing, or tilting, but some deviations are apparent. In this image, the direction to Saturn is downward; orbital motion is to the left.</p><p>Ring scientists are eager for data to help them understand and eventually explain how these mysterious ring features are created. To that end, Cassini has been directed to acquire movie sequences, like the one this image is part of, that watch for these elusive radial structures.</p><p>This observation focused on the morning side of the rings, the side where the rings are rotating out from Saturn's shadow. Spokes appear most frequently at this location. </p><p>Also barely visible in this image are broader, much fainter but still bright radial regions that extend over larger radial distances than the spokes in the upper left. Where these fainter features cross ringlets in the lower part of the image, slight variations in brightness are apparent. These are probably due to tiny particles, possibly part of a former spoke, that haven't yet settled down onto the ring plane.</p><p>Although their formation is still a subject of inquiry, scientists are confident that the microscopic spoke particles are slightly electrically charged and therefore are influenced by Saturn's magnetic field.</p><p>The brightness of the spokes, when combined with viewing geometry information and estimates of their particle sizes can help researchers determine the amount of material in the spokes--a crucial quantity to constrain theories of spoke formation.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 28, 2006, at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 147 degrees. Scale in the original image was about 32 kilometers (20 miles) per pixel. The view has been magnified by a factor of two.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08288" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08288: The Spoke Search sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08288: The Spoke Search sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08288: The Spoke Search
<h1>PIA08290: F Ring Dynamism</h1><div class="PIA08290" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The Cassini spacecraft has revealed a never-before-seen level of detail in Saturn's F ring, including evidence for the perturbing effect of small moonlets orbiting in or close to the ring's bright core.</p><p>For some time, scientists have suspected the presence of tiny moonlets that orbit Saturn in association with the clumpy ring. As the small satellites move close to the F ring core they leave a gravitational signature. In some cases they can draw out material in the form of a "streamer"—a miniature version of the interaction Cassini has witnessed between Prometheus and the F ring material. The dynamics of this interaction are the same, but the scale is different. See <a href="/catalog/PIA06143">PIA06143</a> for a view of Prometheus creating a streamer.</p><p>Scientists speculate that there could be several small moons with a variety of sizes involved in the creation of structures like the one seen here.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 25, 2006 at a distance of approximately 255,000 kilometers (159,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 29 degrees. Scale in the original image was 1 kilometer (3,873 feet) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of two and contrast enhanced.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08290" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08290: F Ring Dynamism sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08290: F Ring Dynamism sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08290: F Ring Dynamism
<h1>PIA08292: A Compelling Case</h1><div class="PIA08292" lang="en" style="width:516px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Multiple faint, streamer-like objects can be seen in this high resolution Cassini spacecraft view of the F ring's bright core.</p><p>The regular spacing of some of the features extending from the core indicates that they could all be produced by the perturbing effect of a single body as it passes close by. Scientists are examining Cassini images closely in an attempt to determine whether there are tiny moonlets -- or perhaps transient clumps of material -- orbiting Saturn near the F ring core. The researchers believe the streamer features seen here could be caused by a related phenomenon to that by which Prometheus produces streamers in the F ring (see <a href="/catalog/PIA07582">PIA07582</a>).</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 25, 2006 at a distance of approximately 339,000 kilometers (211,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 69 degrees. Image scale is 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08292" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08292: A Compelling Case sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08292: A Compelling Case sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08292: A Compelling Case
<h1>PIA08294: Shearing Core</h1><div class="PIA08294" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This close-up view of the core of Saturn's narrow outlying F ring provides an unprecedented look at the fine scale structure of this highly perturbed ring.</p><p>Like <a href="/catalog/PIA08290">PIA08290</a>, the structure seen here could be further evidence of the gravitational effects of small moons orbiting in the F ring region. The moons could produce the basic structure which then starts to shear -- the inner/lower part of the F ring core orbits Saturn faster than the outer/upper part -- giving rise to the slanted features.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 25, 2006 at a distance of approximately 254,000 kilometers (158,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 28 degrees. Scale in the original image was 1 kilometer (3,845 feet) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of two and contrast enhanced.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08294" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08294: Shearing Core sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08294: Shearing Core sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08294: Shearing Core
<h1>PIA08295: Tiny Moons, Big Effects</h1><div class="PIA08295" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The two prominent dark gaps in Saturn's A ring contain small embedded moons and a host of other intriguing features.</p><p>Here, three unique ringlets are visible in the Encke gap (325 kilometers, or 200 miles wide). The innermost ringlet (topmost here) is faint but continuous. The center ringlet brightens substantially toward upper left and displays a few slight kinks. This ringlet is coincident with the orbit of Pan (26 kilometers, or 16 miles across). The outermost ringlet is discontinuous, with two bright regions visible.</p><p>The narrower Keeler gap (42 kilometers, or 26 miles wide) hosts the moon Daphnis (7 kilometers, or 4.3 miles across, not in this image), which raises waves in the gap edges as it orbits Saturn (see <a href="/catalog/PIA07809">PIA07809</a>).</p><p>At lower left, faint ringlets flanking the bright F ring core are visible. These features were found by the Cassini spacecraft to be arranged into a spiral arm structure that winds around the planet like a spring. The spiral may be caused by tiny moonlets or clumps of material that have smashed through the F ring core and liberated material.</p><p>This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 23 degrees above the ringplane.</p><p>The image was taken in visible red light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 11, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 151 degrees. Image scale is about 6 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08295" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08295: Tiny Moons, Big Effects sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08295: Tiny Moons, Big Effects sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08295: Tiny Moons, Big Effects
<h1>PIA08297: Into the Light</h1><div class="PIA08297" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>As ring particles emerge from the darkness of Saturn's shadow, they pass through a region of twilight. The Sun's light, refracted by the planet's atmosphere, peeks around the limb, followed shortly by the Sun itself (see <a href="/catalog/PIA08329">PIA08329</a> for an example of this effect).</p><p>The "penumbra" is the narrow fringe region of the planet's shadow where part (but not all) of the Sun is visible around the side of the planet, creating only a partial shadow there and making the shadow edge look fuzzy.</p><p>The A and F rings are captured here. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 20 degrees above the ringplane. Two faint ringlets can be seen within the Encke gap, which stretches out of the blackness at center and toward right.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 12, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 163 degrees. Image scale is about 9 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08297" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08297: Into the Light sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08297: Into the Light sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08297: Into the Light
<h1>PIA08298: Through the Blinds</h1><div class="PIA08298" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The Cassini spacecraft gazes down through the dark side of Saturn's rings toward the softly glowing planet. The night side southern hemisphere is lit by sunlight reflecting off the opposite side of the rings. The planet's shadow slices diagonally across the scene.</p><p>This view was acquired from about 23 degrees above the ringplane. The sliver of Saturn's sunlit crescent is partly overexposed as seen through the Cassini Division, a region where there is less material to block or scatter incoming light.</p><p>Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 11, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 151 degrees. Image scale is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08298" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08298: Through the Blinds sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08298: Through the Blinds sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08298: Through the Blinds
<h1>PIA08299: A Dead Giveaway</h1><div class="PIA08299" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Edge waves in the Keeler Gap betray the presence of the embedded moon Daphnis.</p><p>Though the Cassini spacecraft cannot see Daphnis (7 kilometers, or 4.3 miles across) in this image (because the spacecraft is looking at its dark side), the tiny moon is undoubtedly located right of center, where the inner edge waves cease and the outer waves begin. The little moon was discovered in Cassini images that revealed its signature waves in the Keeler gap (42 kilometers, or 26 miles wide).</p><p>At left lies the brilliant F ring with its flanking strands. The bright F ring core is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) wide.</p><p>This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 32 degrees above the ringplane.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 29, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 157 degrees. Image scale is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08299" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08299: A Dead Giveaway sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08299: A Dead Giveaway sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08299: A Dead Giveaway
<h1>PIA08300: The B Ring Variations</h1><div class="PIA08300" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>These side-by-side views of a star seen through Saturn's densely populated B ring show marked contrast between the region where spokes -- the ghostly radial features periodically seen in the B ring -- are produced and regions where no spokes are seen.</p><p>In the view at left, the ring displays an uneven grainy texture, with a great deal of variability in brightness along the direction of ring particle motion. In the view at right, the ring is far smoother and more uniform along the same longitudinal direction.</p><p>Ring scientists on the Cassini Imaging Team are studying images such as these to understand the processes by which spokes are created. This difference in appearance from one location to another on the ring could provide the researchers with helpful insights into the features' formation.</p><p>The views were acquired about half an hour apart as the Cassini spacecraft looked toward the unlit side of the rings from about 33 degrees above the ringplane.</p><p>The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 26, 2006 at a distance of approximately 515,000 kilometers (320,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 102 degrees. Image scale is about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08300" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08300: The B Ring Variations sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08300: The B Ring Variations sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08300: The B Ring Variations
<h1>PIA08301: Dim Rings</h1><div class="PIA08301" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Saturn's rings are dark and elusive in this view from high above the ringplane, but their shadows on the planet give them away.</p><p>This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 37 degrees above the ringplane. The D, C, and B rings and the innermost A ring fill this view, although the rings are quite dark and difficult to see. Their structure is far clearer on the planet at right. Near upper right is a dot-like shadow, likely that of the small moon Janus.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 27, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1 million kilometers (600,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 137 degrees. Image scale is 58 kilometers (36 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08301" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08301: Dim Rings sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08301: Dim Rings sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08301: Dim Rings
<h1>PIA08302: Spoke Sighting</h1><div class="PIA08302" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This contrast-enhanced view shows a faint spoke in Saturn's B ring. These ghostly radial structures were imaged by the Voyager spacecraft in the 1980s. Using the Cassini spacecraft data, scientists are hoping to piece together an understanding of how these mysterious features form.</p><p>The Sun-ring-spacecraft viewing angle makes quite a difference in the spokes' appearance: they appear bright against the rings when seen at high phase angles and darker than the rings at lower phase angles. This view was acquired at a phase angle of 133 degrees.</p><p>The scene looks toward the lit side of the rings from about 6 degrees below the ringplane.</p><p>A train of clumplike structures curls around the F ring at left.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 24, 2006 at a distance of approximately 999,000 kilometers (621,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is about 56 kilometers (35 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08302" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08302: Spoke Sighting sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08302: Spoke Sighting sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08302: Spoke Sighting
<h1>PIA08304: Golden Night on Saturn</h1><div class="PIA08304" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Saturn's B and C rings shine in diffuse, scattered light as the Cassini spacecraft looks on the planet's night side. The southern hemisphere is lit by sunlight reflecting off the rings, while the north shines much more feebly in the dim light that filters through the rings and is scattered on the northern hemisphere. </p><p>The fine, innermost rings are seen silhouetted against the southern hemisphere of the planet before partially disappearing into shadow.</p><p>The color of the rings appears more golden because of the increased scattering in the rings brought about by the high phase angle and the view being toward rings' the unlit side. Saturn also looks more golden because of the high phase angle here.</p><p>Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were obtained by the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 28, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.4 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 151 degrees. Image scale is 83 kilometers (51 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08304" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08304: Golden Night on Saturn sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08304: Golden Night on Saturn sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08304: Golden Night on Saturn
<h1>PIA08305: Bright in the Night</h1><div class="PIA08305" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The bright ringlets seen here are populated with microscopic icy particles and are among the brightest features in the rings at high phase angles.</p><p>The twisted core of the F ring, at left, is flanked by three fainter ringlets which are, in fact, part of a separate continuous structure that spirals around the planet. Right of center, in the Encke Gap, are three tortured-looking ringlets.</p><p>This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 12 degrees above the ringplane.</p><p>The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 7, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 163 degrees. Image scale is about 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.</p><p>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08305" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08305: Bright in the Night sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08305: Bright in the Night sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08305: Bright in the Night