Side-swiping Saturn
This image from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft looks down onto the dark side of the rings and shows details in Saturn's swirling atmosphere.
Cassini-Huygens pierced Saturn's ring plane on 14 December 2004, and swiped this sidelong glance at the planet and its magnificent rings.
Saturn's tilt relative to the Sun throws dramatic shadows of the rings onto the planet's northern hemisphere. The rings are lit from below, and both dense and empty regions appear dark, while regions of intermediate particle density are bright.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a co-operative project of NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian space agency.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
