Saturn's odd but ever-intriguing F ring displays multiple lanes and several bright clumps. The Keeler and Encke gaps are visible in the outer A ring, at right.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 28 degrees above the ringplane.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 5, 2007 at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 12 kilometers (8 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 .
Name | Value | Additional Values |
---|---|---|
Target | Saturn Rings | Encke Gap, F Ring, 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 | Clump, Grayscale, Visual | |
Acquisition Date | ||
Release Date | 2007-06-15 | |
Date in Caption | 2007-05-05 | |
Image Credit | NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute | |
Source | photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08963 | |
Identifier | PIA08963 |