2-701-471 - Heritage Space/Heritage Images

Two-image mosaic of Saturn's Rings, seen from Voyager 1 spacecraft, 1980. Computer-assembled two-image mosaic of Saturn's rings, taken by NASA's Voyager 1 on 6 November 1980 at a range of 8 million kilometers (5 million miles). Approximately 95 individual concentric features in the rings can be seen. The extraordinarily complex structure of the rings is easily seen across the entire span of the ring system. The ring structure, once thought to be produced by the gravitational interaction between Saturn's satellites and the orbit of ring particles, has now been found to be too complex for this explanation alone. The 14th satellite of Saturn, discovered by Voyager 1, is seen just inside the narrow F-ring, which is less than 150 kilometers (93 miles wide).