Like black and white photos of earthly family and friends, monochrome
images of Saturn can also capture their subject with crisp poignancy. This
infrared view from high above Saturn's ringplane highlights the contrast
in the cloud bands, the dimly glowing rings and their shadows on the gas
giant planet. The overall effect is stirring.
This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 48 degrees
above the ringplane.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a
combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of polarized
infrared light. The view was obtained on Feb. 12, 2007 at a distance of
approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn and at
a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 144 degrees. Image scale is
191 kilometers (119 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.
