Saturn and its rings in a backlit view from the Cassini spacecraft. The new ring is marked by a cross. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Saturn's moon Enceladus and the E ring. The moon is visible as a bright dot with wisps of material flowing into the adjacent region of the ring. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute The small dot in the upper centre of the image is the Earth-Moon system, seen magnified in the inset. This image was made using the Cassini spacecraft on 17 September 2006. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Taken in unusual light, new images from the Cassini space probe show a previously unknown ring around Saturn. Icy material can be seen stretching from the moon Enceladus and one image even shows our Earth and Moon.

The new results were obtained on 17 September 2006, when Cassini passed into the shadow of Saturn in a solar occultation. During these events the planet appears dark but the rings and other dusty material are backlit.

Saturn’s rings are its most famous feature. From Earth even a small telescope is enough to see two or three broad rings around the planet and space probes reveal these to be made up of thousands of ringlets.

In the September event Cassini imaged a tenuous new ring, outside the main rings but inside the fainter G and E rings. It coincides with the orbit of the small moons Janus and Epimetheus. The ring particles may be made up of particles kicked off these moons by the impact of small meteorites.

Images of the E ring show wispy fingers of material drifting into it from the larger moon Enceladus. These particles may come from the liquid water geysers that gush into it from the surface of this moon.

Finally the Cassini team turned the cameras towards the inner Solar system, capturing a picture of our Earth as a pale blue dot with the Moon visible as a fainter extension. From such a huge distance our whole planet looks rather small and delicate – perhaps an appropriate illustration of the fragility of our home.