The Cassini spacecraft focuses on a streamer-channel feature in Saturn's F
ring.
These features are created by the moon Prometheus as it closely approaches
the ring once per orbit (see PIA08397).
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 36
degrees above the ringplane.The image was taken in visible light with the
Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 30, 2008. The view was
acquired at a distance of approximately 970,000 kilometers (602,000 miles)
from Saturn and at a Sun-ring-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 45 degrees.
Image scale is 5 kilometers (3 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 mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The
Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space
Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team
homepage is at http://ciclops.org.