Shadows cast by Saturn's rings darken portions of the planet's northern hemisphere. The shadows are slowly moving south as Saturn's position relative to the sun slowly changes. The darkening has lessened since Cassini's arrival in 2004. It is speculated that the shadows alter weather patterns on Saturn.

Here, Cassini is looking toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 5 degrees above the ringplane.

This natural color view was created by combining mages taken using red, green and blue spectral filters. It was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Oct. 22, 2007, at a distance of approximately 839,000 miles (1.3 million kilometers) from Saturn.

• Video Player: Cassini's Crossing
• Saturn Data Sheet
• All About Saturn

— NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute and SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute