Pages

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Spokes on Saturn's B-Ring



Bright spokes can be seen on Saturn's B-ring just in front of the shadow cast on the rings on the night side of the planet in this Cassini spacecraft image.

The spokes are on the left of the image. See PIA12605 to learn more. Saturn's moon Tethys (1,062 kilometers, or 660 miles across) can be seen in the upper right of the image. The moon Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across) is visible in the lower right. Both moons are overexposed.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from about 8 degrees above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on May 30, 2010. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 104 degrees. Image scale is 110 kilometers (68 miles) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Note: Today is another slow news day, with little to report. (Apparently the Minister is the only one working, while everyone else takes their vacations.) For similar stories about Saturn and its moons and rings, see Saturnology.

No comments: