CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Dusty Wedge

Dusty Wedge
PIA 10550
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   The ghostly features in Saturn's B ring called spokes are making an appearance again as Cassini continues its tour of the Saturn system. These dusty features on the rings are often wedge-shaped, as this one is, with the inner portions of the spoke being wider than the outer portions due to electromagnetic effects on the dust particles.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Nov. 26, 2008 at a distance of approximately 922,000 kilometers (573,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 39 degrees. Image scale is 52 kilometers (32 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini Equinox Mission is a joint United States and European endeavor. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. 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 Equinox Mission visit http://ciclops.org, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Released: January 6, 2009 (PIA 10550)
Image/Caption Information


Alliance Member Comments
NeKto (Jan 6, 2009 at 7:46 AM):
OK, so this is an image where forces other than gravity do make a visible impact.