Moon, Shadow and Rings

Saturn's moon Epimetheus casts a shadow across colorful rings in this image taken before the planet's August 2009 equinox.

Epimetheus (113 kilometers, or 70 miles across) is visible as a small dot at the center of the bottom of the image.



The novel illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun's angle to the ringplane, significantly darkens the rings, and causes out-of-plane structures to look anomalously bright and cast shadows across the rings. These scenes are possibl [...]

Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art17581/moon-shadow-and-rings.html