February 9, 2005—Striped by shadows of its rings, Saturn is a true- blue backdrop for the icy moon Mimas in this just-released image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. As on Earth, a clear sky on Saturn is generally a blue sky, because the unclouded atmosphere scatters sunlight at bluer wavelengths.

Cassini is the first craft to explore Saturn's moons and rings from the planet's orbit. The Cassini-Huygens mission made headlines last month when the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which had been ejected from Cassini, began transmitting data from Saturn's moon Titan.

—Ted Chamberlain

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