Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection
Title:
Aligned Moons
Original Caption Released with Image:
Cassini looks toward Saturn's night side in this view, capturing a glimpse of Dione's tortured surface in the foreground and a far-off view of Epimetheus beyond Saturn. The spacecraft was just a tenth of a degree above the ringplane when this image was taken.

Parts of Dione's surface have been stretched and ripped apart by tectonic forces. Some of these faults are visible here, as is a large impact basin (not seen in NASA Voyager spacecraft images) near the moon's south pole. Although this crater's diameter has not yet been measured by imaging scientists, it appears to be wider than 250 kilometers (155 miles), which would make it the largest impact structure yet identified on this moon. Dione is 1,118 kilometers (695 miles) across.

Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) presents a similar face here to that revealed in a spectacular false-color view from March, 2005 (see PIA06226).

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 910,000 kilometers (570,000 miles) from Dione, 1.28 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Epimetheus and 1.42 million kilometers (880,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel on Dione and 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Epimetheus.

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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Produced By:
Cassini Imaging Team
Mission:
Cassini
Spacecraft:
Cassini Orbiter
Target Name:
Saturn
Is a satellite of:
Sol (our sun)
Instrument:
Imaging Science Subsystem - Wide Angle
Product Size:
871 samples x 889 lines
Primary Data Set:
Cassini
facet_what:
Sun
facet_what:
Crater
facet_what:
Moon
facet_what:
Voyager
facet_what:
Dione
facet_what:
Saturn
facet_what:
Cassini
facet_what:
Visible Light
facet_what:
Cassini Orbiter
facet_what:
Huygens Probe
facet_what:
Cassini-Huygens
facet_what:
Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
facet_where:
Dione
facet_where:
Saturn
facet_where:
California
facet_where:
Washington
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_where:
Washington, D.C.
facet_when:
March, 2005
facet_when:
May 5, 2005
facet_when_year:
2005
Image #:
PIA07525
UID:
SPD-PHOTJ-PIA07525
orignial url:

Aligned Moons