F Ring Evolution

Saturn's narrow F ring displays two bright strands, flanked by fainter material. The continuing evolution of this quirky ring is an ongoing subject of study for Cassini scientists.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 4 degrees below the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 7, 2007. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 3.1 million kilometers (1.9 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 29 degrees. Image scale is 18 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute