Icy mountain peaks

Icy mountain peaks

Icy mountain peaks

This dramatic mountain scene is somewhat off-piste – in Saturn’s rings.

These constantly changing accumulations of ring particles rise abruptly from the edge of Saturn’s B ring to cast long shadows in this image. They tower as high as 2.5 km above the plane of the rings, a significant difference compared to the vertical thickness of the planet’s main rings, which is generally only about 10 m.

The image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2009.

Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI
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