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Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Saturn's E and G rings

Saturn's E and G rings
Saturn's E and G rings Venus appears just off the edge of the Saturn in the upper part of this Cassini image, directly above the white streak of Saturn's G ring. Lower down, Saturn's E ring makes an appearance, looking blue thanks to the scattering properties of the dust that comprises the ring. The bright spot near the E ring is a distant star. This view looks toward the non-illuminated side of the rings from about 21° below the ring plane. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on 4 January 2013, at a distance of ~597,000 kilometers from Saturn. Image scale is 32 kilometers per pixel. Infrared, blue, and violet filter images were used to create this view. NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Judy Schmidt