Saturn and its rings Cassini image The planet and its rings are backlit by the Sun which is behind the planet in this view This angle allows the study of features of the rings and atmosphere that are not visible in other views There are also two moons at lower left Enceladus nearer rings and Tethys bottom left This view taken from a distance of around kilometres combines infrared red and violet spectral filters Saturn is a gas giant planet with an average radius about nine times that of Earth and a volume of over Earths Its large ring system consists of thousands of chunks of rock and ice The image was obtained on October with the wideangle camera of Cassinis Imaging Science Subsystem ISS The Cassini spacecraft has been surveying the Saturnian system since with its mission scheduled to end in September NasaJplCaltechSpace Science InstituteScience Photo Library