Cassini snaps Saturn from a dizzying height

Saturn and its golden rings appear in dizzying new images taken by the Cassini spacecraft as it flew high above the planet's poles.

Saturn itself has been removed, but its shadow on the rings remains in this top-down natural-colour composite image, comprised of 27 different pictures. Cassini shot this from 1.6 million kilometres away (Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute) There is also a movie(click here) made up of 34 images taken by Cassini over 12 hours as it passed through the plane of the rings. Six moons make cameo appearances in the clip. Other frames were later inserted to make the film appear less jerky. The full set of rings, as photographed by the Cassini spacecraft on September 15, 2006.