Saturn and its rings completely fill the field of view of Cassini's
narrow-angle camera in this natural-color image taken on March 27, 2004. This is
the last single `eyeful' of Saturn and its rings achievable with the
narrow-angle camera on approach to the planet. From now until orbit insertion,
the rings will be larger than the camera's field of view. The image is a
composite of three exposures in red, green, and blue, taken when the spacecraft
was 47.7 million kilometers (29.7 million miles) from the planet. The image
scale is 286 kilometers (178 miles) per pixel.
Color variations between atmospheric bands and features in the southern
hemisphere of the planet, as well as subtle color differences across Saturn's
middle B ring, are now more distinct than ever. Color variations generally imply
different compositions. The nature and causes of any compositional differences
in both the atmosphere and the rings are major questions to be investigated by
Cassini scientists as the mission progresses.
The bright blue sliver of light in the northern hemisphere is sunlight passing
through the Cassini Division in Saturn's rings and being scattered by the
cloud-free upper atmosphere.
Two faint dark spots are visible in the southern hemisphere. These spots are
close to the latitude where Cassini saw two storms merging in mid-March. The
fate of the storms visible here is unclear. They are getting close and will
eventually merge or squeeze past each other. Further analysis of such dynamic
systems in Saturn's atmosphere will help scientists understand their origins and
complex interactions.
Moons visible in this image are (clockwise from top right): Enceladus (499
kilometers, 310 miles across), Mimas (398 kilometers, 247 miles across), Tethys
(1060 kilometers, 659 miles across), and Epimetheus (116 kilometers, 72 miles
across). Epimetheus is dim and appears just above the left edge of the rings.
Brightnesses have been exaggerated to aid visibility.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division
of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The imaging team is
based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado.
