Candle in the Dark
Date: 10 Jun 2006

Saturn's rings cut across an eerie scene that is ruled by Titan's luminous crescent and globe-encircling haze, broken by the small moon Enceladus, whose icy jets are dimly visible at its south pole. North is up.


The scattered light around planet-sized Titan (5,150 km, or 3,200 miles across) makes the moon's solid surface visible in silhouette. Enceladus (505 km, or 314 miles across) enjoys far clearer skies than its giant sibling moon.


This view shows the unlit side of Saturn's rings.


The image was taken in visible red light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 10 June 2006 at a distance of approximately 3.9 million km (2.4 million miles) from Enceladus and 5.3 million km (3.3 million miles) from Titan. The view was obtained at a sun-moon-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 160 degrees relative to both moons. Image scale is 23 km (15 miles) per pixel on Enceladus and 32 km (20 miles) on Titan.


Last Update: 15 Jun 2011 (AMB)

Credit: NASA