PIA07512: Scanning the Rings


Scanning the Rings

Caption:

This amazing close-up of Saturn's rings reveals their incredible variety. In some regions there are wavelike structures, while in other places the rings' structure appears to be more chaotic.

This image shows (from top to bottom) the A ring with the Encke gap, the Cassini Division, and the B and C rings.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 26, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 14 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel.

Background Info:

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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Saturn Rings A Ring, B Ring, C Ring, Cassini Division, Encke Gap, Saturn
System Saturn
Target Type Ring Gap, Planet
Mission Cassini-Huygens
Instrument Host Cassini Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
Detector Narrow Angle Camera
Extra Keywords Grayscale, Visual, Wave
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2005-06-02
Date in Caption 2005-04-26
Image Credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07512
Identifier PIA07512