Ringed Planet

Well the shadows cast by the Sun through the rings Saturn appear upon the gaseous planets upper atmosphere. 'Surface' is a loose term used only to define a spacial divide from the planet Saturns outer atmosphere and the 'realm' of space beyond, it is primarily full of gas with no solid surface that we know of - perhaps a solid core exists but its possibly tens-of-thousands of feet deep inside the planetary interior in. Crushing depths. Shadows would be relative to that of an eclipse of the Moon as seen on Earth yet this would be unusual upon or inside the atmsphere of Saturn looking up into the sky at the rings circling above as the shadow effect would be stretched across the sky for miles and miles, thousands of miles, kilometers even with the glinting Sun light eeking through the ring layer system. The effect of the Sun would be a twinkling effect throughout thee rings as different ring thicknesses passby the Sun thus creating the effect. But these regions of the rings shadows if you were in the area of Saturn when they passed overhead would be the same as when you are in the prime areas when the Moons shadow passes over head during a total eclispe, the region you occupy would grow extremly dark until the event passed over or the gas giant orbited itself out of line-of-sight with the Sun. Secondary phenomenon would thus occur with regards to the orbiting moons and moonlets would in-turn create total or partial eclipses upon Saturns outer atmosphere. The same phenomenon/occurences are possible upon that of the parent gas giant planet to LV-223.

Here's your image [img]http://i47.tinypic.com/348pyky.jpg[/img] and here's a B/W Cassini image [img]http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/618/cache/space224-saturn-rings_61802_600x450.jpg[/img] Of course, Prometheus is in glorious HD; the Cassini images are not. But they both have pretty crisp ring shadows.

Very nice observation [b]zzplural[/b]!