CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS

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Brilliant F Ring

 

Pandora (81 kilometers, 50 miles across) is almost overwhelmed by the brightness of the F ring in this view. The F ring’s bright core displays kinks and is flanked by fainter ringlets. Imaging scientists recently determined these fainter ringlets to be a single spiral ring that winds around the planet.

Pandora is faintly lit by “Saturnshine,” or reflected light from the planet, and few features can be seen here. This image was acquired by Cassini exactly three hours after the spacecraft took the image seen in PIA07601, which showed Prometheus interior to the F ring.

The image was taken in visible light with the narrow angle camera on Aug. 21, 2005 from a distance of approximately 583,000 kilometers (362,000 miles) from Saturn and at a high Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 136 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel.

 

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Brilliant F Ring
PIA 07602


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