This is an artist concept of a close-up view of Saturn's ring particles.
The planet Saturn is seen in the background (yellow and brown). The
particles (blue) are composed mostly of ice, but are not uniform. They
clump together to form elongated, curved aggregates, continually forming
and dispersing. The space between the clumps is mostly empty. The largest
individual particles shown are a few meters (yards) across. Image by Marty
Peterson, based on a 1984 image by William K. Hartmann. Hartmann's image
illustrated early research by Stuart Weidenschilling and co-workers at the
Planetary Science Insitute, on dynamical ephemeral bodies in Saturn's rings.
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 was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The
ultraviolet imaging spectrograph was designed and built at, and the team
is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph team home
page is at http://lasp.colorado.edu/cassini.
