Image: Spokes in Saturn's B Ring

Description: This Cassini spacecraft view shows a group of more than a dozen spokes in Saturn's outer B ring. The B ring displays the azimuthal asymmetry, or variation with longitude around the planet, that is characteristic of the spoke-forming region. The large spoke feature above center -- most likely a grouping of multiple spokes -- is about 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) long and 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) wide. Left of center, two dark gaps mark the Cassini Division (4,800 kilometers, or 2,980 miles wide). This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 9 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 28, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 9 kilometers (6 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. The sun-rings-camera phase angle here is low. The Sun is behind Cassini and off to the side a bit. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Title: Spokes in Saturn's B Ring
Credit: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08955
Author: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No