- When these small particles are lit from behind, they show up like fog in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.
- The C ring also appears relatively bright here, not because it is made of dust, but because the material in it — mostly dirty water ice — is translucent. In fact, in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was known as the "crepe ring" because of its supposed similarity to crepe paper.
- The wide middle ring known as the B ring — one of the easiest to see from Earth through telescopes because it is densely packed with chunks of bright water ice — looks dark in these images because it is so thick that it blocks almost all of the sunlight shining behind it.
Infrared images also show thermal, or heat, radiation. While a visible-light image from this vantage point would simply show the face of the planet as dimly lit by sunlight reflected off the rings, Saturn glows brightly in this view because of heat from Saturn's interior. In a second version of the image, scientists "stretched" or exaggerated the contrast of the data, which brings out subtleties not initially visible.
- Structures in the wispy E ring — made from the icy breath of the moon Enceladus — reveal themselves in this exaggerated view.
"We're busy working on analyzing the infrared data from this special view of the Saturn system," said Phil Nicholson from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "The infrared data should tell us more about the sizes of the particles which make up the D, E, F, and G rings and how these sizes vary with location in the rings, as well as provide clues as to their chemical composition."