| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Saturn Shows Off Its Shadow
Take a look up at the enormous shadow cast by Saturn onto its own rings in this raw image, acquired by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on September 18, 2012.
Cassini captured this image from below Saturn’s ring plane at a distance of 1,393,386 miles (2,242,437 kilometers). It shows not only the gas giant’s shadow but also the wispy nature of the rings, which, although complex, extensive and highly reflective (the light seen on Saturn above is reflected light from the rings!) they are still very thin — less than a mile (about 1 km) on average and in some places as little as thirty feet (10 meters) thick.
Seen in the right light, some of the thin innermost rings can seem to nearly disappear entirely — especially when backlit by Saturn itself.
(…)
Read the rest of Saturn Shows Off Its Shadow (169 words)
© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Cassini, orbit, rings, Saturn, Solar System
Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
2012-09-21 16:46:13
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/97493/saturn-shows-off-its-shadow/
Source:
