PIA23170: Infrared Eye Yields New Spectral Map
 Target Name:  Saturn
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Instrument:  Imaging Science Subsystem 
Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer
 Product Size:  3950 x 2946 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Cassini Imaging Team
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA23170.tif (17.59 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA23170.jpg (606.4 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 false-color image at right shows spectral mapping of Saturn's A, B and C rings, captured by Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). It displays an infrared view of the rings, rather than an image in visible light. The blue-green areas are the regions with the purest water ice and/or largest grain size (primarily the A and B rings), while the reddish color indicates increasing amounts of non-icy material and/or smaller grain sizes (primarily in the C ring and Cassini Division).

At left, the same image is overlaid on a natural-color mosaic of Saturn taken by Cassini's Imaging Science Subsystem.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. 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, Colorado.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/cassini. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/G. Ugarkovic (ISS), NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/CNRS/LPG-Nantes (VIMS)

Image Addition Date:
2019-06-13