Splendid Striations

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute, Posted on: Monday, 11 July 2005, 05:53 CDT Download full size image

This sweeping view of Saturn's rings offers a look at how the planet's moons help shape and maintain this structure, making Saturn the jewel of the solar system.

Some of the bright lanes seen here within the main rings are due to resonances with moons such as Mimas, Janus and Prometheus, whose gravity nudges the orbits of the ring particles. These resonances can also cause dark gaps in the rings, like the Cassini Division.

Clumps are visible in both the thin, outer F ring and the ringlets within the Encke Gap; the latter is maintained by the presence of tiny Pan (20 kilometers, or 12 miles, across at left of center). The clumps result from gravitational interactions of ring particles with the small moons that orbit nearby. The structurally complex F ring is maintained by the presence of the moons Prometheus and Pandora, not pictured (see Flock of Moons ).

Pan also creates dark wakes, which can faintly be seen here immediately interior to the inner edge of the Encke Gap.

The view is from beneath Saturn's ringplane, looking upward.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 24, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. Contrast was enhanced to improve the visibility of faint objects in the scene.

More Images

Mars
Phoenix Conductivity Probe with Shadow and Toothmark.NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander inserted the four needles of its thermal and conductivity probe into M...

---

Universe
F Ring in Between.Two ring moons sweep through the scene as Cassini focuses on Saturn's intriguing F ring. ...

---