Arrival at Saturn

Saturn's rings burst out of shadow and curve gracefully around the planet. Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across at its widest point) appears as a bright speck touching the inside of the na...

This two-in-one view of Dione from NASA's Cassini spacecraft includes the mission's highest-resolution view of the Saturnian moon's icy surface.

This map of the surface of Saturn's moon Iapetus (1,436 kilometers, or 892 miles across), generated from images taken by NASA's Voyager spacecraft, illustrates the imaging coverage planned during C...

These images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft show Titan's stable northern lake district. Cassini's radar instrument obtained the recent images on May 22, 2012. It observed some previously uns...

Dione appears small and far off in this Cassini view, which nonetheless manages to capture a detailed look at the moon's beautiful bright streaks, or "linea." The linea are a system of braided cany...

Dawn on Saturn is greeted across the vastness of interplanetary space by the morning star, Venus, in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Venus appears just off the edge of the planet, in the...

Titan's First Close-Up October 26, 2004 This image is one of the closest ever taken of Saturn's hazy moon Titan. It was captured by Cassini's imaging scien...

This image of Claudia AV-L-23, from the atlas of the giant asteroid Vesta, was created from images taken as NASA's Dawn mission flew around the object, also known as a protoplanet.

Phoebe Looms in View June 11, 2004 Animation (2.5 MB QuickTime) Phoebe, Saturn's largest outer moon, is the first target of expl...

The oblate shape of the moon Iapetus is particularly noticeable in this portrait. The two-toned surface of the moon Iapetus also stands out against the darkness of space in this image. See Global ...

The sun's low angle near the terminator throws the craters of Mimas into stark relief. This view looks toward high northern latitudes on Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles across) from a positio...

This natural color view from the Cassini spacecraft highlights the myriad gradations in the transparency of Saturn's inner rings. The dark shadows of the rings separate Saturn's southern hemispher...

NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of the surface of asteroid Vesta with its framing camera on August 11, 2011. It was taken through the camera's clear filter. The image has a resolution of...

This image of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a crater near the dwarf planet's equator. The view is centered at approximately 6 degrees south latitude, 230 degrees east longitude.

The Cassini spacecraft acquired this view of Enceladus just after the spacecraft passed within 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the surface on Oct. 9, 2008. Remarkably, only a handful of craters are vis...

This 8-image mosaic was acquired during the late afternoon (near 5pm LST, note the long shadows) on Sol 2 as part of the predeploy "insurance panorama" and shows the newly deployed rover sitting on...

A darkly defined Rhea passes before the fuzzy orb of Titan in this Cassini view of Saturn's two largest moons. Rhea is closer to the spacecraft in this view. See Ancient Plains of Rhea to learn mo...

This oblique view of Saturn shows what may be localized upwellings in the clouds of Saturn's southern hemisphere. Although the contrast is low, a vortex is visible near lower right. This view look...

A small crescent of the moon Rhea is dwarfed by the larger crescent of Saturn. Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) can be seen in the upper right of the image. This view looks toward the ...

In late 2016, the Cassini spacecraft will begin a completely new type of mission at Saturn.

These mosaic images from NASA's Dawn mission show how dark, carbon-rich materials tend to speckle the rims of smaller craters or their immediate surroundings on the giant asteroid Vesta; Numisia Cr...

Fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 approaching Jupiter in 1994.

The face of Dione is almost fully lit as the Cassini spacecraft flies in between this moon and the sun with Dione at low phase. With a few hundred pixels of its digital camera, Cassini details do...

NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image showing cratered terrain with hills and ridges on Vesta's surface on August 6, 2011. This image was taken through the framing camera's clear filter aboard...

In August 2012, a long filament of solar material coalesced in the Sun's atmosphere.