Saturn at Opposition

The rich dynamics of Saturn's F ring are on display in this image taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Most of the features seen here are believed to be due to the ring's interactions with its shepherd...

This image of Titan's night side was taken during Cassini¿s very close flyby of the smoggy moon on Feb. 15, 2005. The image shows Titan's thick atmosphere illuminated from behind by sunlight. A d...

Mapping Titan's Surface July 2, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06086 Like the mysterious dark markings on Mars that once haunted astronomer Pe...

This montage of images of the Saturnian System was prepared from an assemblage of images taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft during its Saturn encounter in November 1980. This artist's arrangement ...

These two images compare topographic maps of the giant asteroid Vesta as discerned by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (top) and as seen by NASA's Dawn spacecraft (bottom). Hubble has been in an orbit...

The Cassini spacecraft looks toward Saturn's tiny moon Aegaeon within the G-ring arc. The moonlet Aegaeon (formerly known as S/2008 S 1) can't be seen in this image, but it orbits in the bright ar...

The Cassini spacecraft captures the ripples, loops and storms that swirl in Saturn's east-west flowing cloud bands. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a spectr...

Dwarfed by Storms November 19, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06524 Tiny Mimas is dwarfed by a huge white storm and dark waves on the edge of a...

With Enceladus nearly in front of the Sun from Cassini's viewpoint, its icy jets become clearly visible against the background. The view here is roughly perpendicular to the direction of the linea...

This image, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, shows a portion of the southern hemisphere of dwarf planet Ceres from an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers). Toharu crater, named for the Pawnee g...

This image of a fracture network in Occator Crater on Ceres was obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on July 1, 2018 from an altitude of about 29 miles (46 kilometers).

The finest details on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus are revealed in this 30-meter (100-foot) per-pixel, enhanced-color image taken during Cassini's closest-ever encounter with Enceladus on...

This dramatic view of the crescents of Neptune and Triton was acquired by Voyager 2 approximately 3 days, 6 and one-half hours after its closest approach to Neptune (north is to the right).

Slipping into shadow, the south polar vortex at Saturn's moon Titan still stands out against the orange and blue haze layers that are characteristic of Titan's atmosphere.

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the brightest area seen on asteroid Vesta so far. It shows a crater located inside the rim of the Rheasilvia basin at the south pole of Vesta.

This image, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, shows the surface of dwarf planet Ceres from an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers). The image was taken on September 15, 2015, and has a resolutio...

The Cassini spacecraft looks closely at the outer B ring and the Cassini Division, revealing clump-like structures in the outer edge of the B ring. The scrambled pattern in the B ring's outer edge...

Ceres rotates in this frame from a movie comprised of images taken by NASA's Dawn mission during its approach to the dwarf planet. The images were taken on Feb. 19, 2015, from a distance of nearly ...

A beautiful ''mini-jet'' appears in the dynamic F ring of Saturn. Saturn's A ring (including the Keeler gap and just a hint of the Encke gap at the upper-right) also appears.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope photographed Mars on July 18, 2018 near its closest approach to Earth since 2003. The planet was observed near opposition, when the Sun, Earth and Mars are lined up, w...

Most planetary rings appear to be shaped, at least in part, by moons orbiting their planets, but nowhere is that more evident than in Saturn's F ring. 

Tethys, dwarfed by the scale of Saturn and its rings, appears as an elegant crescent in this image taken by NASA's Cassini Spacecraft. Views like this are impossible from Earth, where we only see S...

Three different false-color views of Saturn's moon Iapetus show the boundary of the global "color dichotomy" on the hemisphere of this moon facing away from Saturn. The "color dichotomy," which has...

Occator Crater, measuring 57 miles (92 kilometers) across and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep, contains the brightest area on Ceres.

The tall, cone-shaped mountain Ahuna Mons is seen in this image taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Ahuna Mons taken on Oct. 14, 2015.