Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Cassini-Huygens Collection
Title:
Snapshot from Afar
Description:
Snapshot from Afar
Full Description:
The Cassini spacecraft snapped this Saturn portrait from the distance of Iapetus, just before beginning its close encounter with the two-toned moon.

Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) is visible against the clouds of the northern hemisphere. Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) stands out as a bright speck against the dark ring shadows, near center.

Enceladus is not pictured here, although it casts its shadow upon the northern hemisphere, to the left of Rhea.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 4 degrees below the ringplane. The rings disappear into the planet's shadow at right.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2007. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 3.3 million kilometers (2.1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 195 kilometers (121 miles) per pixel on the planet.

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:
October 19, 2007
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:
Cassini Orbiter
facet_what:
Rhea
facet_what:
Visible Light
facet_what:
Iapetus
facet_what:
Enceladus
facet_what:
Mimas
facet_what:
Snapshot
facet_where:
Saturn
facet_where:
Jupiter
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
facet_where:
California
facet_where:
Washington
facet_where:
Rhea
facet_where:
Enceladus
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_where:
Washington, D.C.
facet_when:
October 19, 2007
facet_when_year:
2007
UID:
SPD-SATRN-2811
original url:

Snapshot from Afar