Saturn Imitates the Moon

Saturn appears to NASA Cassini cameras as a thin, sunlit crescent in this unearthly view. Citizens of Earth, being so much closer to the Sun than Saturn, never get to enjoy a view of Saturn like this without the aid of our robot envoys. Parts of the night side of Saturn show faint illumination due to light reflected off the rings back onto the planet, an effect dubbed "ringshine." This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 43 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken in green light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 4, 2013. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 75 miles (120 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18276

Date

2014-07-21

Photographer / author

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Collection

JPL

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

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