Saturn Noir

Saturn's luminescent rings provide striking contrasts of light and darkness, as the irregular shape of Janus glides across the foreground. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from less than a degree above the ringplane.

For a closer view of Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) see Superb Janus.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 29, 2008. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Janus. Image scale is 7 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel.