Approach to Saturn begins

The narrow-angle camera on board the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft took a series of exposures of Saturn and its rings and moons on 9 February 2004, which were composited to create this stunning, colour image. At the time, Cassini was 69.4 million kilometres from Saturn, less than half the distance from Earth to the Sun. The image contrast and colours have been slightly enhanced to aid visibility. The smallest features visible in this image are approximately 540 kilometres across.

Cassini-Huygens is a joint NASA/ESA mission. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will orbit Saturn for four years, making an extensive survey of the ringed planet. The ESA Huygens probe will be the first to land on a world in the outer Solar System - on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Data from Cassini and Huygens may offer clues about how life began on Earth.