Circling Satellites
November 26, 2007
Saturn looks on as three moons round the rings.
From farthest to nearest the Cassini spacecraft: Tethys (1071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) is seen above the rings. Pandora (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across) lies immediately outside the edge of the narrow F ring. Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) floats beneath the rings' edge.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 2 degrees above the ringplane.
The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Oct. 6, 2007. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 141 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel.
Topics:
Environment, Cassini–Huygens, Rings of Saturn, Moons of Saturn, Disaster Accident, Cassini–Huygens timeline, natural satellite, Planetary ring, Pandora, Tethys, Saturn, Mimas
