Portrait Of A Pearl At Dusk

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this image of Saturn's moon Enceladus hanging like a single bright pearl against the golden-brown canvas of the icy rings and the faint outline of the planet at dusk - complete with faint ring shadows falling across Saturn's surface.

By Space Daily Editorial Team · Editorial process

Published March 6, 2006 · Updated March 16, 2026

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this image of Saturn’s moon Enceladus hanging like a single bright pearl against the golden-brown canvas of the icy rings and the faint outline of the planet at dusk – complete with faint ring shadows falling across Saturn’s surface.

Icy Enceladus is 505 kilometers (314 miles) across.

Cassini’s wide-angle camera captured the image using red, green and blue spectral filters to create this natural color view. The image was taken Jan. 17 at a distance of approximately 200,000 kilometers (100,000 miles) from Enceladus. The image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel.

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