Enceladus

Enceladus's unusual plume is only easily visible when the Cassini spacecraft and the Sun are on opposite sides of Enceladus. So what's lighting up the moon then? It's light reflected off Saturn. This lighting trick allows the Cassini spacecraft to capture both the back-lit plume and the surface of Enceladus in one shot.

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Enceladus. North on Enceladus is up. The image was taken in blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 2, 2013.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 517,000 miles (832,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 175 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (5 kilometers) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

F-Ring Mini-Jet

A beautiful "mini-jet" appears in the dynamic F ring of Saturn. Saturn's A ring (including the Keeler gap and just a hint of the Encke gap at the upper-right) also appears.

The mini-jets are thought by imaging scientists to be caused by low-speed collisions in the F ring ejecting dusty material from the ring's core. For more on the mini-jets, see PIA15504.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 48 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 20, 2013.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 841,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 82 degrees. Image scale is 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Saturn's Rings

Saturn's rings appear to form a majestic arc over the planet in this image from the Cassini spacecraft.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 17 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on June 15, 2013 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 705 nanometers.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 657,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 2 degrees. Image scale is 37 miles (60 kilometers) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Saturn

The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This storm is the largest, most intense storm observed on Saturn and is still active today. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Saturn's Northern Hemisphere Storm in Visual and Infrared

This set of images from NASA's Cassini mission shows the turbulent power of a monster Saturn storm. The visible-light image in the back, obtained on February 25, 2011, by Cassini's imaging camera, shows the turbulent clouds churning across the face of Saturn. The inset infrared image, obtained a day earlier, by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, shows the dredging up of water and ammonia ices from deep in Saturn's atmosphere. This was the first time water ice was detected in Saturn's atmosphere. The storm, first detected by Cassini's radio and plasma wave subsystem in December 2011, churned around the planet in a band around 33 degrees north.

The visible-light image can be seen separately at PIA12826.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/University of Arizona/University of Wisconsin

Note: For more information, see Cassini Sees Saturn Storm's Explosive Power.

Dione

Like their semi-divine namesakes, Dione's twin craters Romulus and Remus (just above-right of center) stand together. Dido, the larger crater featuring a central peak, lies just to the southeast on the day/night terminator.

Lit terrain seen here is on the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Dione. North on Dione is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 28, 2013.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 870,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 77 degrees. Image scale is 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel in the original image. This image has been zoomed in by a factor of 1.5 to enhance clarity.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute