You don’t typically see Saturn’s rings looking like this, but then you can’t see in ultraviolet like Cassini (or many insects) can! The image above was acquired by the UVIS (UltraViolet Imaging Spectrograph) instrument aboard the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft on June 30, 2004, just as it was entering orbit around Saturn.

The area shown here is about 10,000 km (6,200 miles) across. It’s a small section of ring segments… just a portion of Saturn’s magnificent expanse of rings. Part of the C ring, toward Saturn, is along the left, and the inner edge of the B ring begins just right of the center. The colors are related to the composition of the ring particles; blue and green colors are from bright water ice, reds are rings with darker, “dirtier” particles.

While the colors aren’t “real” per se — our eyes simply can’t see UV light — the association of colors we can see to specific UV wavelengths allows scientists to accurately observe relative differences in the ring segments.

“It is cool that we can pick our own colors in the pictures we produce,” said Dr. Larry W. Esposito, a professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado and UVIS Principal Investigator. “No person has ever seen ultraviolet light, although some butterflies can. Our pictures may thus represent a ‘butterfly’s-eye view’ of the Saturn system.”

Click the image to access a higher-resolution image on ESA’s Flickr page, and read more about the Cassini mission here.