Saturn's Rings and Shadows

Saturn's brightly lit rings slice across this Cassini spacecraft picture taken before a backdrop of the planet's clouds.

The shadow of the rings can be seen cast upon the planet in the lower right of the image. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 11, 2010 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 938 nanometers.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 77 degrees. Image scale is 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Dione

The Cassini spacecraft swooped in for a close-up of the cratered, fractured surface of Saturn's moon Dione in this image taken during the spacecraft's January 27, 2010, non-targeted flyby.

Cassini came within about 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles) of the moon during this flyby, and this image was acquired at a distance of approximately 46,000 kilometers (29,000 miles). See PIA07749 for an older, closer view of Dione.

This view looks toward the leading hemisphere of Dione (1,123 kilometers, or 698 miles across). North on Dione is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. The view was acquired at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 108 degrees. Image scale is 270 meters (886 feet) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute