image: This contrast-enhanced view of Saturn’s faint G ring shows its extremely sharp inner edge and more diffuse outer boundary. Using its large high-gain antenna as a shield, Cassini flew through the region interior to the G ring during insertion into Saturn orbit. The spacecraft was struck many times by the fine icy particles that populate the region between the F and G rings.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 19, 2006, at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 7 kilometers (4 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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team & NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute