Saturn seen in a strange light. Click for larger. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

This is one of those really odd shots you’d think was made up at somebody’s desk with Photoshop.   Not so, the caption below from the Cassini site explains it all.

From the Cassini site:

Rays of light from the sun have taken many different paths to compose this glorious image of Saturn and its rings.

This view looks toward the unilluminated (north) side of the rings and, at the top of the image, the night side of Saturn. Sunlight has been reflected off the illuminated side of the rings to light the planet’s southern hemisphere, seen here as a bright band of yellow-orange. The northern hemisphere, in the top left corner of the image, is dimly lit by light diffusely scattered through the rings. The planet’s shadow cuts across the rings, but light reflected off the southern hemisphere backlights parts of the C ring, making them visible in silhouette. A similar lighting arrangement can be seen in Saturn by Ringshine.

Bright points of light in the image are stars occulted by the rings.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 41 degrees above the ringplane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on March 20, 2009 at a distance of approximately 892,000 kilometers (554,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 50 kilometers (31 miles) per pixel.