Saturn's softly glowing rings shine in scattered sunlight.
The B ring presents a remarkable difference in brightness between the near
and far arms (bottom and top of the image, respectively). The strong
variation in brightness could be due to the presence of wake-like features
in the B ring.
See PIA08389 for a labeled Cassini map of the rings.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 5
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 at a distance of approximately 574,000 kilometers
(357,000 miles) from Saturn. At the center of the image, the
Sun-ring-spacecraft, or phase, angle is 114 degrees, and the image scale
is 34 kilometers (21 miles) per pixel in the radial, or outward from
Saturn, direction.
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.
