Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Cassini-Huygens Collection
Title:
Prime Time for Rhea
Description:
Prime Time for Rhea
Full Description:
This map of the surface of Saturn's moon, Rhea, illustrates the regions that will be imaged by Cassini during the spacecraft's close flyby of the moon on Nov. 26, 2005. At closest approach, the spacecraft is expected to pass approximately 500 kilometers (310 miles) above the moon's surface.

The colored lines delineate the regions that will be imaged at differing resolutions, listed in the legend at bottom. Rhea is 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across.

The new high-resolution coverage will examine details on the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Rhea, including two large impact basins there. Cassini previously imaged terrain farther to the south of this at approximately 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel in August 2005 (see Rhea: Polar View). Imaging scientists also hope to get a high-resolution view of a relatively young 50-kilometer-wide (30-mile) crater on the moon's leading hemisphere (see Great White Splat).

Planetary scientists are interested in learning about the compositional makeup of Rhea, other than water ice, as well as the nature of the wispy streaks on the moon's trailing hemisphere. In December, 2004, Cassini revealed that similar bright, wispy markings on Dione are actually a system of braided tectonic fractures (see Dione's Surprise). The map was made from images obtained by both the Cassini and NASA Voyager spacecraft.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.n…. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

*Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Date:
November 17, 2005
Keywords:
gallery
Keywords:
images
Keywords:
Cassini
Keywords:
mission
Keywords:
Huygens
Keywords:
probe
Keywords:
Saturn
Keywords:
explore
Keywords:
videos
Keywords:
movies
Keywords:
Jupiter
Keywords:
flyby
Keywords:
spacecraft
Keywords:
assembly
Keywords:
launch
Keywords:
flight
Keywords:
operations facilities
Keywords:
mpeg
Keywords:
Quicktime
facet_what:
Saturn
facet_what:
Cassini
facet_what:
Jupiter
facet_what:
Cassini-Huygens
facet_what:
Huygens Probe
facet_what:
Moon
facet_what:
Dione
facet_what:
Cassini Orbiter
facet_what:
Rhea
facet_what:
Crater
facet_what:
Voyager
facet_what:
Polar
facet_where:
Saturn
facet_where:
Jupiter
facet_where:
Dione
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
facet_where:
California
facet_where:
Washington
facet_where:
Rhea
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_where:
Washington, D.C.
facet_when:
August 2005
facet_when:
December, 2004
facet_when:
November 17, 2005
facet_when_year:
2005
facet_when_year:
2004
UID:
SPD-SATRN-1858
original url:

Prime Time for Rhea