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PIA12585: Detailing Dark Spokes
NASA's Cassini spacecraft images dark spokes on Saturn's B ring. Spokes are radial markings on Saturn's rings that continue to interest scientists, and they can be seen here stretching left to right across the image.
 Target Name:  S Rings
 Is a satellite of:  Saturn
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens 
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Instrument:  ISS - Wide Angle 
 Product Size:  1016 x 930 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Cassini Imaging Team 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA12585.tif (946 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA12585.jpg (125 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

The Cassini spacecraft images dark spokes on Saturn's B ring.

Spokes are radial markings on Saturn's rings that continue to interest scientists, and they can be seen here stretching left to right across the image. Spokes appear bright when they are viewed at phase, or Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, angles higher than about 45 degrees. However, this image was taken at a phase angle of 20 degrees, which is why the spokes appear dark. See PIA11144 and PIA08288 to learn more.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from about 5 degrees above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible red light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 27, 2010. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 260,000 kilometers (162,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 18 kilometers (11 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.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Image Addition Date:
2010-03-09