Enceladus

Saturn's moon Enceladus brightly reflects sunlight before a backdrop of the planet's rings and the rings' shadows cast onto the planet.

The Cassini spacecraft captured this snapshot during its flyby of the moon on November 30, 2010. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across). North on Enceladus is up and rotated 28 degrees to the right.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from less than a degree above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 53,000 kilometers (33,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 14 degrees. Image scale is 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute