Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2007 January 31
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
 a GIF movie featuring the image.

Movie: Cassini Crosses Saturn's Ring Plane
Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI ; Animation: Gordan Ugarkovic & Emily Lakdawalla

Explanation: What would the rings of Saturn look like if you passed right through the ring plane? To find out, NASA aimed cameras from the Cassini spacecraft right at Saturn's rings as the robotic explorer passed from the sunlit side of the rings to the shadowed side. Resulting images from a vantage point outside the rings and most moons, but inside the orbit of Titan, have been gathered together in the above time-lapse movie. The dramatic movie demonstrates that ring particle density and reflectivity makes some parts of the shadowed side nearly the photographic negative of the sunlit side, but nearly empty regions remain continually dark. Visible also are Saturn-orbiting moons Enceladus, Mimas, Janus, Epimetheus, Prometheus, and Pandora. The extreme thinness of Saturn's rings can be appreciated from frames taken near the crossing time.

Tomorrow's picture: a tail of two horizons


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