Saturn. Composite Cassini spacecraft image of Saturn and its rings. This is the largest and most detailed true-colour image of the planet ever produced. Shadows cast by the rings are seen in the planet's northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere are stormy areas (grey). The Cassini- Huygens spacecraft was launched in 1997 to investigate Saturn, its rings and its moons. The 126 images that make up this composite were taken over a period of 2 hours at a distance of 6.3 million kilometres from Saturn on 6 October 2004.