CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Surging Across the Rings

Surging Across the Rings
PIA 08992
Avg Rating: 8.93/10

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   A surge in brightness appears on the rings directly opposite the Sun from Cassini. This "opposition surge" travels across the rings as the spacecraft watches (see PIA08267).

See PIA08247 for a detailed explanation of the opposition effect.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 9 degrees below the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on June 12, 2007 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 853 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of 524,374 kilometers (325,830 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 31 kilometers (19 miles) per pixel.

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 Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Released: July 26, 2007 (PIA 08992)
Image/Caption Information


Alliance Member Comments
Red_dragon (Aug 7, 2007 at 10:41 AM):
Great picture for the ominous aspect Saturn presents, being unable to enter into the field of the WAC; another nice work by CICLOPS.