Natural-color image of Saturn, taken by the Cassini spacecraft in April 2008. From this angle, the rings appear relatively dark, as the Sun is below them, lighting the other side (relative to the spacecraft). Their shadow on the planet is narrow, because the planet is approaching the point where its axis of rotation (and the ring plane) are sideways relative to the Sun. Bands parallel to the ring plane and the planet's Equator are faintly visible, unlike the dramatic bands on Jupiter, because the colder temperatures cause the layer where variations in brightness occur to be much deeper in the atmosphere, and a thick layer of gas filled with ammonia-ice haze lies above that region. Despite this, the tops of clouds (similar to thunderheads in the Earth's atmosphere) are visible, here and there, particularly in the darker bands just above the Equator.

     A view of Saturn from behind, taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1980, four days after passing the planet. The shadow of the planet is visible on the rings, and the ring-shadow (very thin, because the planet was near an Equinox) is seen at right, on the daylit side of the planet. In this digitally enhanced image, the night side of the planet is noticeably lit by light reflected from the rings.

     An unusual storm, possibly related to seasonal changes in the weather, is visible in this image, taken on December 1, 1994 by the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera. At that time, the planet was only a few months away from the 1995 ring-plane crossing. At the ring-crossing, the rings almost completely disappear, because although 150,000 miles across, they are less than a mile thick.

     Infrared image of Saturn taken in January 1998, by the Hubble Space Telescope. In this false-color image, different colors indicate varying heights and compositions of cloud layers. Tethys is visible just above Saturn, on the right, and Dione, on the lower left.

     Saturn seen "sideways" by the Cassini spacecraft, so that the rings are edge-on, completely disappear "above" the planet, and are visible only as a thin line across its center, and as shadows on the left. The small dot above center, near the rings, is 300-mile wide Enceladus. The northern portion of the planet, on the left, has a strong blue tinge, for the same reason that our atmosphere is blue -- the molecules in the atmosphere scatter blue light more strongly than other colors. The southern portion of the planet, on the right, has a golden tinge, because the clouds in its atmosphere -- which are gold-colored for reasons currently completely unknown -- are closer to the top of the atmosphere, allowing less room for scattering.

     Ultraviolet image of Saturn, showing auroral displays. Energetic particles trapped by its magnetic field bombard the atmosphere near the poles, as on Earth. However, because Saturn's atmosphere is made of hydrogen, and extends into space further than our denser atmosphere, the auroral displays extend more than a thousand miles above its cloudy lower atmosphere. The false color image here, taken with ultraviolet radiation, shows radiation by atomic hydrogen in red, since that is the visible light color most associated with hydrogen radiation, while radiation by molecular hydrogen is shown in white.

     Composite of three ultraviolet/visual images of Saturn, showing auroral displays in January, 2004. The aurorae are shown in blue, because they are ultraviolet images; but in reality, they would appear red, because of the emissions of hydrogen atoms.