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Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Rhea, ring shadows, and moon shadows on Saturn

Rhea, ring shadows, and moon shadows on Saturn
Rhea, ring shadows, and moon shadows on Saturn Just below Saturn's equator, the gray globe of Rhea hovers against the yellow background. The equator is marked by a thin dark band, a highly foreshortened view of Saturn's ring system. Saturn's rings cast shadows on the northern hemisphere; these shadows are dropping in latitude as the seasons proceed toward northern hemisphere spring. Above the ring shadows is a tiny dark dot, a shadow cast by one of Saturn's small moons. To the lower right of the image is a dark smudge, a shadow cast by Iapetus, Saturn's outermost large moon. NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Björn Jónsson

The images for this color composite were captured by Cassini on June 15, 2007 at 07:22 UTC from a distance of about 1.2 million kilometers (720,000 miles).