Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

 

NASA recently published an awesome image of Saturn, obtained by the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft. The image shows crescent Saturn, girded by its magnificent rings.

 

The spacecraft was only a few degrees above the plane of the rings, looking on the dark side of the rings. Faint sunlight shone through the rings.

 

The image is a composite of two infrared images, obtained with the Cassini narrow-angle camera, on 6 November 2006. Cassini was at a distance of approximately 1.3 million km from Saturn, and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft angel of 148 degrees.

 

Further reading

Cassini-Huygens Mission

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

 

 

Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem

Senior Astronomy Specialist