Soccer Dad

Piercing the darkness

A sliver of 'ringshine' pierces the darkness in this view that looks toward the unilluminated side of Saturn's rings. The ring shadows fall into darkness beyond the terminator in the north. South of the equator, a dim glow brightens the darkened globe. This light, called ringshine, comes from sunlight reflected off the sunward side of the expansive rings (the opposite face of the ringplane from this perspective). The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 19, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 851,000 kilometers (529,000 miles) from Saturn.