Great Image: Titan and Saturn's Rings

With other things happening around the solar system, we can forget about the ongoing mission of NASA's Cassini spacecraft as it orbits Saturn.  After 10 years, we are still getting valuable information and images from this distant aircraft.  Here is NASA's story for this image:

When orbiting Saturn, be sure to watch for breathtaking superpositions of moons and rings. One such picturesque vista was visible recently to the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. In 2006 April, Cassini captured Saturn's A and F rings stretching in front of cloud-shrouded Titan. Near the rings and appearing just above Titan was Epimetheus, a moon which orbits just outside the F ring. The dark space in the A ring is called the Encke Gap, although several thin knotted ringlets and even the small moon Pan orbit there.

Cassini celebrated its 10th year in orbit back in June, when NASA highlighted some of its discoveries over this period:

-- The Huygens probe makes first landing on a moon in the outer solar system (Titan)
-- Discovery of active, icy plumes on the Saturnian moon Enceladus
-- Saturn's rings revealed as active and dynamic -- a laboratory for how planets form
-- Titan revealed as an Earth-like world with rain, rivers, lakes and seas
-- Studies of Saturn's great northern storm of 2010-2011
-- Studies reveal radio-wave patterns are not tied to Saturn's interior rotation, as previously thought
-- Vertical structures in the rings imaged for the first time
-- Study of prebiotic chemistry on Titan
-- Mystery of the dual, bright-dark surface of the moon Iapetus solved
-- First complete view of the north polar hexagon and discovery of giant hurricanes at both of Saturn's poles

Visit the Cassini mission site for more on the spacecraft as well as additional images.

Top Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA