Cluster of Moons

Three of Saturn's closest-orbiting moons are captured here, rounding the rings.

From innermost to outermost are Atlas (32 kilometers, or 20 miles across), Pandora (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across) and Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across).

The F ring displays a double-banded structure here, along with its usual squiggles and kinks. Near right, a faint ringlet can be observed within the Encke Gap.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 4 degrees below the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 6, 2007. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 17 kilometers (10 miles) per pixel.