Gallery | Cassini-Pics | A Moon Shadow
The Cassini spacecraft has revealed much about Saturn's moons, but that doesn't mean Saturn itself has been forgotten. Here, Cassini captured Saturn's rings at a location known as Cassini's Division.
This division is the largest gap found within Saturn's ring system and is created by the gravitational pull of Mimas, one of Saturn's moons, on the planet's ring particles. Although the size of Cassini's Division varies along the gap, on average it measures about 3,000 miles wide. From Earth, the gap looks like a void between busy rings, but in the 1980s the two Voyager spacecraft determined that Cassini's Division contains its own dark and diffuse ring material.
This picture, taken by the Cassini probe in 2009, shows the shadow of Mimas as seen through the unlit side of the Cassini Division.
This division is the largest gap found within Saturn's ring system and is created by the gravitational pull of Mimas, one of Saturn's moons, on the planet's ring particles. Although the size of Cassini's Division varies along the gap, on average it measures about 3,000 miles wide. From Earth, the gap looks like a void between busy rings, but in the 1980s the two Voyager spacecraft determined that Cassini's Division contains its own dark and diffuse ring material.
This picture, taken by the Cassini probe in 2009, shows the shadow of Mimas as seen through the unlit side of the Cassini Division.
