87,000 miles from the cloudtops of Saturn’s equator writhes the hazy cords of the F ring, a braided belt of icy dust that shifts and twists around and over itself. Clumps of material gather together and separate, and make the thin ring vary in thickness anywhere from under 20 miles to over 300 miles wide. Repeatedly harassed by the shepherd moon Prometheus, which regularly skims the ring and pulls streamers of material off of it, the F ring is a dynamic member of the ring family.
This image from Cassini, taken on June 10, shows a particularly turbulent section of the F ring with several small clumps and arcs near the lower center and a larger, upraised section to the right, which appears to cast its own shadow upon the center channel.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Lights in the Dark 
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