Titan, Rings, and Saturn from Cassini
How thin are the rings of Saturn?
Brightness measurements from different angles have shown
Saturn's rings
to be about one kilometer thick, making them many times thinner,
in relative proportion, than a razor blade.
This thinness sometimes appears in
dramatic fashion
during an image taken nearly along the ring plane.
The robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn
has now captured another shot that dramatically highlights the ring's thinness.
The above image was taken in mid January in
infrared and
polarized light.
Titan looms just over the thin rings,
while dark
ring shadows on Saturn show the Sun to be above the
ring plane.
Close inspection of the image will show the smaller moon
Enceladus on the far right.
Cassini, humanity's first mission to orbit
Saturn, currently has
operations planned until 2017.