New ftrom Cassini

[Wilber_Stool]

Saturn’s faintly banded atmosphere is delicately colored and its threadbare rings cross their own shadows in this marvelous natural color view from Cassini.

The planet and its rings would nearly fill the space between Earth and Moon. Yet, despite their great breadth, the rings are a few meters thick and in some places, very translucent. Here we can see through the C ring, which is closest to the planet, and through the Cassini division, the 4,800 kilometer- (2,980 mile-) wide gap which arcs across the top of the image and separates the optically thick B ring from the A ring. The part of the atmosphere seen through the gap appears darker and more bluish, due to scattering at blue wavelengths by the cloud-free upper atmosphere.

The different colors in Saturn’s atmosphere are due to the presence of particles whose composition has yet to be determined.

http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/view.php?id=350

[Catch22Dem]

1. Wow, very cool

and those are the natural colors? I used to look through my telescope when we first moved here, and could see all kinds of stuff. Now there's a street light right in front of my house. We can barely even look at the moon through the telescope now, with all that damn light!

[Dudley_DUright]

2. and Saturn says

"I am ready for my close up Mr. Cassini". Great stuff.