Saturn and Dione
The soft, bright-and-dark bands displayed by Saturn in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft are the signature of methane in the planet's atmosphere. This image was taken in wavelengths of light that are absorbed by methane on Saturn. Dark areas are regions where light travels deeper into the atmosphere (passing through more methane) before reflecting and scattering off of clouds and then heading back out of the atmosphere. In such images, the deeper the light goes, the more of it gets absorbed by methane, and the darker that part of Saturn appears. The moon Dione (698 miles or 1,123 kilometers across) hangs below the rings at right. Shadows of the rings are also visible here, cast onto the planet's southern hemisphere. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 6, 2015, using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 728 nanometers.
Size: 3000px × 3000px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: astronomical, astronomy, bw, cassini, dione, exploration, methane, mission, moon, moons, nasa, planet, ring, rings, saturn, science, shadow, space
