PIA02227: Two-image Mosaic of Saturn's Rings


Two-image Mosaic of Saturn’s Rings

Caption:

This computer-assembled two-image mosaic of Saturn's rings, taken by NASA's Voyager 1 on Nov. 6, 1980 at a range of 8 million kilometers (5 million miles), shows approximately 95 individual concentric features in the rings. The extraordinarily complex structure of the rings is easily seen across the entire span of the ring system. The ring structure, once thought to be produced by the gravitational interaction between Saturn's satellites and the orbit of ring particles, has now been found to be too complex for this explanation alone. The 14th satellite of Saturn, discovered by Voyager 1, is seen (upper left) just inside the narrow F-ring, which is less than 150 kilometers (93 miles wide).

Background Info:

The Voyager Project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Saturn Rings F Ring, Saturn
System Saturn
Target Type Ring Planet, Satellite
Mission Voyager
Instrument Host Cassini Orbiter Voyager 2
Host Type Orbiter Flyby Spacecraft
Instrument Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
Detector
Extra Keywords Disk, Grayscale
Acquisition Date
Release Date 1999-12-10
Date in Caption 1980-11-06
Image Credit NASA/JPL
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02227
Identifier PIA02227