Saturn's Ring Region

This long exposure of the ring region about 150,000 to 200,000 kilometers (90,000 to 120,000 miles) from the center of Saturn captured the very faint G-ring, seen at left. The ring was discovered by Voyager 1 last fall at a similar phase angle. Voyager 2 was about 305,000 km. (189,000 mi.) away when it took this image Aug. 26. The small rectangular dots forming a regular pattern are reseau (reference) marks on the Voyager vidicon camera. The high-resolution detail in the A-ring has been washed out by the very long exposure needed to bring out the very tenuous G-ring. The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.