A View of Saturn's Rings. Barely more than a week ahead of entering Saturn's orbit for its four-year tour of Saturn's system, NASA/ESA/Italian Space Agency Cassini-Huygens spacecraft took this view of Saturn's rings. The craft was 4 million miles (6.4 million km) from the ringed planet. Saturn's ring is seen from beneath and would it be seen entirely, it would be extending over observer's head starting at picture's upper right. The entirety of the ring is seen here, in natural colors, with the C ring (or crepe ring) at the upper left, the B ring (center), and the A ring (bottom, mauve). Such features well known to amateur astronomy observers like the Cassini Division (black lane atop the A ring) and the Encke gap (black thin line at the border of the A ring) are well seen. Although the rings are made of water ice, color variations might be due to other materials such as rock or carbon compounds contaminating the ice in various amounts. picture courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute