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Supreme Saturn Beauty
Swirling cloud bands, delicate ring shadows and icy moons make the Saturn system a place of supreme natural beauty. Even Cassini's remarkable images can only provide the slightest sense of the experience of actually being there. Tethys (at the right, 1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) and Mimas (near the center, 397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) are captured here against the planet's turbulent atmosphere. Although the rings are only a thin strip from this angle, one can see the structure of the entire main ring system in its shadow on the planet - from the C ring at the bottom to the faint specter of the F ring at the top. The image was taken in visible violet light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 16, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 66 kilometers (41 miles) per pixel.
D Is For 'Dust'
The image was taken at a high phase angle - the Sun-Saturn-spacecraft angle, which was 177 degrees. Viewing the rings at high phase angle makes the finest dusty particles visible. The inner edge of the C ring enters the scene at the lower left, and Saturn's shadow cuts off the view of the rings. Several background stars can also be seen here. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 15, 2005, at a distance of approximately 293,000 kilometers (182,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 14 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel. Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Saturn'S Rings Have Own Atmosphere Paris, France (ESA) Aug 17, 2005 Data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft indicate that Saturn's majestic ring system has its own atmosphere - separate from that of the planet itself.
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