Saturn at Opposition

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 image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows some of the undulating terrain in asteroid Vesta's southern hemisphere.

This schematic graphic illustrates the bombardments that lead to colorful splotches and bands on the surfaces of several icy moons of Saturn. The arrow indicating the orbital motion of the moon is ...

This nighttime view of Saturn's north pole by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini orbiter reveals a dynamic, active planet at least 75 kilometers (47 miles) below the nor...

This image of the eastern rim of Occator Crater was obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on June 10, 2018 from an altitude of about 22 miles (36 kilometers).

In its season of "lasts," NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its final close approach to Saturn's moon Mimas on January 30, 2017.

+ Read Feature NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this raw, unprocessed image of Saturn's moon Rhea on March 10, 2012. The camera was pointing toward Rhea at approximately 71,495 miles (115,060 kilome...

This unusual photograph, taken during the second Apollo 12 extravehicular activity (EVA), shows two U.S. spacecraft on the surface of the moon. 

Voyager 2 obtained this high-resolution picture of Saturn's rings on August 22, 1981 when the spacecraft was 4 million kilometers (2.5 million miles) away. Evident here are the numerous "spoke" fea...

This sequence of images shows the Sun from its surface to its upper atmosphere and in order of temperature from the first one at 6,000 degrees C on the surface out to about 10 million degrees C.

This map of Saturn's F ring illustrates how the ghostly strands flanking the core of this contorted ring, when examined in detail, actually form a spiral structure wound like a spring around the pl...

+ Viewing options The small moon Janus overtakes the larger moon Rhea in a dance played out before Saturn and its rings. Observations of mutual moon-crossing events like this one, in which on...

Radio waves produced near the poles of Saturn have been monitored by Cassini's Radio and Plasma Wave Science instrument (RPWS) since 2003. A team of European scientists have analysed several years ...

Cassini's powerful radar eyes have uncovered a geologic goldmine in a region called Xanadu on Saturn's moon Titan. Panning west to east, the geologic features include river channels, mountains and ...

With kaleidoscopic forms and hues, these two false-color views from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show the patterns that come and go in the course of one Saturn day within the huge storm in the planet'...

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows Fabia crater, located in asteroid Vesta's Numisia quadrangle, in Vesta's northern hemisphere.

In this artist's concept, the Cassini spacecraft makes a close pass by Saturn's inner moon Enceladus to study plumes from geysers that erupt from giant fissures in the moon's southern polar region....

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a part of Vesta's northern hemisphere, which is mostly in darkness. Since Dawn's arrival at asteroid Vesta the sun has not illuminated Vesta's most nort...

Saturn's clouds are full of raw beauty, but they also represent a playground for a branch of physics called fluid dynamics, which seeks to understand the motion of gases and liquids.

The Cassini spacecraft records Titan's seasonal hemispheric dichotomy, with the moon's northern half appearing slightly lighter than the southern half in this image. See Two Halves of Titan to l...

Great, oval-shaped storms churn through Saturn's clouds in this Cassini spacecraft view of southern latitudes. The thin, linear striations in cloud features extending away from the ovals suggests t...

A recently discovered diffuse ringlet shines brightly in the Cassini Division as Mimas cruises past at bottom. Most of the main rings are comprised of particles ranging from marble-size to house-s...

Enhanced view of the minerals and surface process on Mercury.

This view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft taken on May 29, 2016, shows terrain on Ceres centered at approximately 41 degrees north latitude, 308 degrees east longitude. Several features in this view di...

Prometheus is caught here, in the act of pulling a new streamer out of the F ring's inner edge. Trailing behind (above the moon in the image) are previous dark gores that Prometheus (102 kilometers...