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Golden
Night on
Saturn
Saturn's
B and C
rings
shine in
diffuse,
scattered
light as
the
Cassini
spacecraft
looks on
the
planet's
night
side. The
southern
hemisphere
is lit by
sunlight
reflecting
off the
rings,
while the
north
shines
much more
feebly in
the dim
light that
filters
through
the rings
and is
scattered
on the
northern
hemisphere.
The fine,
innermost
rings are
seen
silhouetted
against
the
southern
hemisphere
of the
planet
before
partially
disappearing
into
shadow.
The color
of the
rings
appears
more
golden
because of
the
increased
scattering
in the
rings
brought
about by
the high
phase
angle and
the view
being
toward
rings' the
unlit
side.
Saturn
also looks
more
golden
because of
the high
phase
angle
here.
Images
taken
using red,
green and
blue
spectral
filters
were
combined
to create
this
natural
color
view. The
images
were
obtained
by the
Cassini
spacecraft
wide-angle
camera on
Sept. 28,
2006 at a
distance
of
approximately
1.4
million
kilometers
(900,000
miles)
from
Saturn and
at a
Sun-Saturn-spacecraft,
or phase,
angle of
151
degrees.
Image
scale is
83
kilometers
(51 miles)
per pixel. |
