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Emily Lakdawalla • Jan 31, 2007

Saturn from above, in color

I wrote recently about a set of images of Saturn acquired by Cassini from a unique vantage point, well above the planet, looking down on the rings. Someone has taken up the challenge of assembling the 36 different images into a single mosaic, in color, and it is as lovely as I'd hoped. Here is Ian Regan's take on Saturn from above. Enjoy. Click to enlarge and have fun following those little threads of rings all the way around the planet!

Saturn from above
Saturn from above On 20 January 2007 Cassini's orbit took it 60 degrees above the plane of the rings to capture this top-down view, composed of 12 separate wide-angle camera footprints. The resolution is about 77 kilometers per pixel. In the upper right corner of the image, Prometheus, Pandora, and Janus skirt the edge of the rings. This is the main ring system, from the thin braid of the F ring at outer edge, across the A ring to the densest B ring (which appears dark because we're looking at the unlit face here) into the C ring. The D ring is very faint and goes almost all the way down to Saturn's clouds.Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Ian Regan

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