Saturnian Moon and Rings
Explanation:
When can a robot produce
art?
When it glides past the
rings of Saturn, for one.
As the
robot spacecraft Cassini orbiting
Saturn
crossed outside the famous photogenic ring plane of the
expansive planet, the rings were imaged from the outside,
nearly edge on, and in the
shadow of Saturn.
From the upper left, ring features include the
A ring, the
Cassini
gap, the
B ring, and the darker
C ring that includes the
Titan gap and a
gap yet unnamed.
Last month when the
above image was taken,
the gliding spacecraft was about one million kilometers from foreground
Enceladus,
a
small Saturnian moon
only about 500 kilometers across.
Cassini is
scheduled to continue its 70 orbit tour of
Saturn over the next three years, sending back
images of the gas giant,
its rings, and its moons that will be studied for decades to come.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
