The dark Cassini Division, within Saturn's rings, contains a great deal of
structure, as seen in this color image. The sharp inner boundary of the
division (left of center) is the outer edge of the massive B ring and is
maintained by the gravitational influence of the moon Mimas.
Spectroscopic observations by Cassini indicate that the Cassini Division,
similar to the C ring, contains more contaminated ice than do the B and A
rings on either side.
This view is centered on a region approximately 118,500 kilometers (73,600
miles) from Saturn's center. (Saturn is 120,500-kilometers-wide (74,900
miles) at its equator.) From left to right, the image spans approximately
11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) across the ringplane.
A closer view of the outer edge of the Cassini Division can be seen in PIA07616).
Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to
create this view, which approximates what the human eye might see. The
image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 18,
2005, at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (1 million
miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 9 kilometers (6 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. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at
http://ciclops.org.