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Saturn, Janus and Mimas
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute
This photo, taken in August by the Cassini orbiter, shows Saturn, Janus and Mimas as well as the planet's distinctive rings.
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Mimas Dwarfed by Saturn
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Saturn's moon Mimas appears near Saturn, dwarfed by its parent planet in this image. Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers across) appears tiny compared to the storms clearly visible in far northern and southern hemispheres of Saturn. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 20, 2012.
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2012 View of Saturn's Rings
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has recently resumed the kind of orbits that allow for spectacular views of Saturn's rings. This image was obtained on May 23, 2012.
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Snowball Fight in Saturn's Rings
Credit: NASA/JPL
From the inside out, the "Cassini division" in faint red at left is followed by the A ring in its entirety in this ultraviolet-light image. The A ring begins with a "dirty" interior of red followed by more blue as it spreads away from the planet. The blue is a signature of water ice. The red band roughly three-fourths of the way outward in the A ring is known as the Encke gap.
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Striking New Photo and Video of Saturn's Rings
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn's shadow stretches completely across the rings in this view, taken on Jan. 19, 2007 and released March 1. It's a natural-color view taken from about 764,000 miles (1.2 million kilometer) away.
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Saturn Surprises Spur Cassini Mission Reprise
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
The most detailed image ever made of Saturn and its rings was sent by the Cassini spacecraft on October 6, 2004.
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Saturn's Rings Older Than First Thought?
Credit: NASA
Saturn's magnificent rings star in this donut-like view taken by the Cassini spacecraft. The planet itself has been removed from view, blotted out to highlight the intricate set of rings as Cassini passed over head at an elevation of about 60 degrees - the probe's highest yet vantage point of Saturn. This image is actually a compilation of 27 separate views - nine separate sets of red, green and blue components - taken over about 45 minutes and then assembled into a mosaic by scientists on Earth. It is one of several released March 1, 2007 by NASA, though the image group was taken in late January, 2007. Cassini used its wide-angle camera to photograph Saturn's rings from a distance of about one million miles (1.6 million kilometers). The moons Epimetheus (in the one o'clock position), Pandora (at five o'clock), and Janus (10 o'clock) are visible in this view.
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Hints of Unseen Moons in Saturn's Rings
Credit: NASA/Cassini/U. of Colorado
Bright bands in the left part of the image are peaks of a density wave
caused by gravitational stirring of the rings by the moon Janus. A smaller density wave in the right half of the image is produced by the moon Pandora. The observation was made by watching the light of a distant star flicker as the rings passed in front of it.
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New Thinking: Saturn's Rings Might Be Ancient
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn's icy rings shine in scattered sunlight in this view taken by the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 4, 2008 at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (770,000 miles) from Saturn.
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Saturn Cassini Heat Emission
Credit: NASA/JPL/ASI/University of Arizona
This false-color composite image, constructed from data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, shows Saturn's rings and southern hemisphere. The image was made from 65 individual observations by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on Nov. 1, 2008.
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Surprising, Huge Peaks Discovered in Saturn's Rings
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
Seen from our planet, the view of Saturn’s rings during its equinox is extremely foreshortened and limited. But in orbit around Saturn, Cassini had no such problems in Aug. 2009. In this mosaic of images taken on Aug. 12, the shadows of the planet's expansive rings are compressed into a single, narrow band cast onto the planet.
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Saturn Rings Cast in Rare Light
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
The shadow of Saturn's moon Mimas dips onto the planet's rings and straddles the Cassini Division in this natural color image taken as Saturn approaches its August 2009 equinox.
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Cassini Sees Saturn's Rough and Tumble Rings
Credit: NASA/JPL/CICLOPS
This mosaic of the Saturn system, taken by Cassini, glows with scattered light from tiny dust grains. The sun is obscured by the planet in this unusual geometry.
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The Rings of Saturn
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Details of Saturn's icy rings are visible in this sweeping view from Cassini of the planet's glorious ring system. The total span, from A ring to F ring, covers approximately 40,800 miles (65,700 km) and was photographed at Nov. 26, 2008.
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The Rings of Saturn
Credit: NASA/JPL
The rings of Saturn.
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Saturn's Rings to Disappear Tuesday
Credit: NASA/ STScI/AURA/Hubble Heritage Team
Since Saturn's axis is tilted as it orbits the sun, Saturn has seasons, like those of planet Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope took the above sequence of images about a year apart. Starting on the left in 1996, just after the last time the rings were edge-on, and ending on the right in 2000 when the rings had opened up significantly from our point of view. Image
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Spectacular New Images Showcase Saturn's Rings
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn viewed by Cassini in images taken in July, 2008. Six moons complete this constructed panorama. Saturn's largest moon, Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles, across), Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles, across), Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles, across), Pandora (81 kilometers, or 50 miles, across), Epimetheus (113 kilometers, or 70 miles, across) and Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles, across).
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Tropical Storm Spotted on Saturn's Moon Titan
Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/Henry Roe, Lowell Observatory/Emily Schaller, Insitute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii
Gemini North infrared image of Saturn and Titan (at about 6 o'clock position), obtained on May 7, 2009.
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A View of Saturn's Southern Reaches
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
NASA's Cassini spacecraft snapped this angled shot of Saturn, showing the southern reaches of the planet with the rings on a dramatic diagonal. Saturn's icy moon Enceladus is visible as a tiny white speck in the lower lefthand corner. The picture was taken on June 15, 2012, at a distance of about 1.8 million miles. [
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Shadows of Saturn's Rings
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA
Shadows of Saturn's rings (right) fall across the planet at left.
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Inside the Giants: Puzzling Differences in Jupiter and Saturn
Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble
Saturn seems to have a significant core of iron, carbon and other elements
heavier than hydrogen.
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Bright Lights, Eerie 'Heartbeat' at Saturn
Hubble Space Telescope images of Saturn and its polar auroral emissions on Jan. 24, 26, and 28 in 2004. The images combine ultraviolet images of the south polar region with visible wavelength images of the planet and rings. Credit Z. Levay and J. Clarke.
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Spectacular Aurora on Saturn Shines in New Video
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Leicester/University of Arizona
Composite image of Saturn shows the entire planet, including the rings as seen by NASA's Cassini spacecraft from the south. The green glow represents aurora lights.
Full Story.
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Capture the Lord of the Rings
Saturn on 25 March 2005. Image by Alan Friedman.
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Saturn Probe Beams Home Stunning Views
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn's northern hemisphere is seen here against its nested rings in this view from Cassini.
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Cassini Photo of Saturn, Its Rings and Titan
Credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/Space Science Institute
In this photo, snapped by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 5, 2012, Saturn's rings cast shadows on the huge planet. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is visible just below the rings, in the upper right of the picture.
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Moons on the Move
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Titan emerges from behind Saturn while Tethys streaks into view in this colorful scene on March 24, 2008. Titan is 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) wide; Tethys is 1,071 kilometers (665 miles) wide. Saturn's shadow darkens the far arm of the rings near the planet's limb.
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Saturn
Credit: NASA
Saturn and its rings.
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Monster Storm on Saturn
Credit: ESO/Univ. of Oxford/T. Barry
A comparison of thermal infrared images of Saturn from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VISIR instrument) is shown, with an amateur visible-light view from Trevor Barry (Broken Hill, Australia) obtained on Jan. 19, 2011The images were obtained on Jan. 19, 2011, during the mature phase of the northern storm. The second image is taken at a wavelength that reveals the structures in Saturn's lower atmosphere, showing the churning storm clouds and the central cooler vortex. The third image is sensitive to much higher altitudes in Saturn's normally peaceful stratosphere.
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Saturn's Rings
Saturn's rings.
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Saturn and Three Moons
Credit: NASA/JP
Saturn and three moons, Tethys, Dione and Rhea, seen by a Voyager spacecraft on August 4, 1982, from a distance of 13 million miles.
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Cassini View of Giant Saturn Storm
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
These red, orange and green clouds (false color) in Saturn's northern hemisphere indicate the tail end of a massive storm that started in December 2010. Even after visible signs of the storm started to fade, infrared measurements continued to reveal powerful effects at work in Saturn's stratosphere.
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Put a Ring On It
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Rings enrobe crescent Saturn in this Cassini spacecraft image. Clouds swirl through the atmosphere of the planet, while barely-visible Prometheus orbits between the planet's main rings and its the thin F ring. Saturn's moon Prometheus appears very small above the rings near the middle of the image.
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Cassini Probe Spies Spokes in Saturn's Rings
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
After months of searching, the Cassini orbiter circling Saturn has finally photographed the spokes in the planet's rings.
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Saturn's Shimmying Rings May Be Imitating Galaxy
Vertical structures, among the tallest seen in Saturn's main rings, rise abruptly from the edge of Saturn's B ring to cast long shadows in this image, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft two weeks before the planet's August 2009 equinox.
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Saturn Ring Clumps and Strands
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Clumpy particles in Saturn’s B-ring provide stark contrast to the delicately ordered ringlets seen in the rest of this view presented by the Cassini spacecraft. Image taken July 10, 2009.
