Dark shadows
constantly hover over Saturn's twilight world as seen by the Cassini spacecraft, where the
Sun's rays are one hundred times weaker than at Earth.
The image
shows Saturn's icy rings casting their silhouette upon the planet, and the
planetary shadow falls in turn on the rings at the upper right. The small shadow
spot of the moon Tethys also appears on Saturn's clouds at the left. However,
the dark Saturn environment may harbor the possibility of life, as evidenced by
Cassini's pass
through a fountain of water vapor from the moon Enceladus.
Cassini
captured this view on Feb.
25, 2008 about 1
million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Saturn. The spacecraft angled in
for its shot from the non-illuminated side of the rings.
— NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute and SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science
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