PIA08316: The Search for Spokes


The Search for Spokes

Caption:

A broad and ghostly spoke drifts past under the Cassini spacecraft's gaze. The spoke-forming region of the B ring displays faint longitudinal variations in brightness, from left to right, a feature seen in other images (see PIA08300 ).

This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 35 degrees above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 17, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 158 degrees. Image scale is 12 kilometers (7 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 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 .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Saturn Rings B Ring, Saturn
System Saturn
Target Type Ring Planet
Mission Cassini-Huygens
Instrument Host Cassini Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
Detector Narrow Angle Camera
Extra Keywords Grayscale, Visual
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2006-11-23
Date in Caption 2006-10-17
Image Credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08316
Identifier PIA08316