The rings are awash in subtle tones of gold and cream in this view which
shows the outer B ring, the Cassini Division and the inner part of the A
ring.
In this viewing geometry, the brightest feature in the Cassini Division is
the recently discovered diffuse ringlet near the outer edge of the
Division (see also PIA08330). The diffuse ringlet has a distinctive bluish cast.
The color of the rings appears more golden than earlier in the mission
because of the viewing geometry here -- increased scattering in the rings
is brought about by the high phase angle and the view being toward the
rings' unlit side.
This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 30 degrees
above the ringplane.
Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to
create this natural color view. The images were acquired by the Cassini
spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 29, 2006 at a distance of
approximately 1.829 million kilometers (1.137 million miles) from Saturn.
Image scale is 11 kilometers (7 miles) 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/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team
homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
