This high-resolution view shows, at left, a spiral density wave in
Saturn's inner B ring. A spiral density wave is a spiral-shaped massing of
particles that tightly winds many times around the planet. These waves
decrease in wavelength with increasing distance from the planet.
Scientists use images like this one to understand the mass of the rings
and the collisional dynamics of the ring particles.
The view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 50 degrees
below the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini
spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 10, 2008. The view was obtained at a
distance of approximately 279,000 kilometers (173,000 miles) from Saturn.
Image scale is 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel.
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.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team
homepage is at http://ciclops.org.