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I don’t keep track of what’s going on in astronomy and space exploration nearly as much as I’d like to. But Baron found this last night, and I thought I’d share:

(Click on the image to see it full size.)

This is an exaggerated color contrast version of a tiled collection of shots taken by the Cassini probe as it hung in Saturn’s shadow for twelve hours on 9/15. Go here to get all the details, and other versions of the shot.

The Sun is directly behind Saturn, creating that bright rim-light. Earth is visible in the shot, as a bright dot just above the left-side of the main rings, and just inside the first dim ring.

Looking between the Earth and the bright rings, you can just barely make out another ring (kind of reddish), that was discovered by this shot and in the same orbit as Saturn’s co-orbiting moons, Janus and Epimetheus.

Another new ring was discovered at the orbit of Pallene. It’s outside the dim ring, and inside the outer, hazy ring, but even knowing it’s there, I can’t make it out on this shot.