Prometheus is the small moon that shepherds Saturn’s outer “F” ring and causes those crazy waves in the particles that make up the ring itself. The phenomenon has been the theme of at least 3 different animations here on wanderingspace.net. The image above is what that small moon in those animations looks like from 60,000 km taken by Cassini on Dec 26, 2009.
Recent observations of Saturn’s rings from Cassini reveal some vertical structure to the rings. Shown here are disturbances caused by Daphnis, a small moonlet that orbits within the Keeler Gap of the rings. We have seen much of these kinds of disturbances in the rings from tiny moonlets, but the Saturninan equinox finally provides us with an angle of sunlight that reveals such structures from the long shadows they cast. The tallest shadow seen at right is Daphnis itself.
Some recent posts from Gordan Ugarkovic. The first is just gorgeous, the second featuring Prometheus and Pan in the gaps, the third is also just real pretty and the 4th is two sides of Enceladus. The 2nd and 4th of these images are false color which we publish less often, but these were just too nice to deny.
Saturn in near infrared filter. Taken late March 2009.
Yes, another movie of Prometheus disturbing Saturn’s rings. This is the longest clip and includes the most ring swinging action for your money. This version has been cropped and reduced down from the original. See here for a larger, wider view of the same animation (2M gif).
Another by Gordan Ugarkovic. Will post a wallpaper version later. Too gorgeous.
From the raw images of the Cassini mission. This is Saturn’s tiny moon Prometheus causing a disturbance in some ring particles. Nothing really new to be said here as we have seen this featured in a few animations posted here before. This is just a nice image of that phenomenon with the addition of a nice glaringly over-exposed Prometheus.
Another Ugarkovic Beauty. Visible in the image are also Enceladus, Epimetheus and Mimas.
Looking at the 500 most recent raw images from Cassini, one of the pages was filled with nothing but images of the rings at various angles and locations. The tiling of these images on one page was unintentionally interesting and I thought we would repeat a more intentional version here with those same images.
This image taken on January 18, 2008 from 988,018 km, 
reminds one of some of those vintage Voyager images of Saturn (seen at left) from back in the early and mid 1980’s. Just compare at the incredible differences between the quality and color of the Voyager vs. Cassini images. Saturn images during the Voyager era were all consistently yellow and brown, but today’s Cassini images reveal Saturn to be a rich peach color mixed with hints of yellow and brown. We also have the advantage of being witness to the rich blues currently appearing in the northern hemisphere which did not exist in 1981 or 1986.
