Planet # 42-23918180
by NASA - JPL - © Corbis. All Rights Reserved. - © NASA - JPL/Science Faction/Corbis
Saturn Approaches Equinox
The northern hemisphere of Saturn is full of darker bands, in contrast to the peach-colored southern hemisphere, beneath the thin edge-on rings, casting a shadow on the north. Soon the planet's north will tilt toward the Sun, and the rings' shadow will vanish on the equinox and begin to fall on the south, as the seasons change. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 23, 2008, at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (740,000 miles) from Saturn. Cassini has been operating in the Saturn system for 4 years. --- Image by © NASA - JPL/Science Faction/Corbis