Saturday, July 2, 2011

Cassini images Saturn’s rings across the moon of Titan

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn, imagining the planet and its moons for 7 years now. The view in this image (see below) is almost parallel with Saturn’s rings. The angle is just slightly under the ring plane. That is why the rings look so thin.

A 938 nanometers near infrared spectral filter was used with Cassin’s narrow angle camera to snap the shot. Cassini was 1.4 million miles away from Titan when the shot was snapped. For perspective, up on Titan is north.
 
Cassini is a joint project between NASA, ESA, and ISA.

Original image photographed by NASA of Saturn's rings across the moon of Titan

Colorized version of ;Titan based on previous data

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