A new image of Saturn’s moon Prometheus is one of the highest resolution photographs captured to date by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and offers a detailed look at the pockmarked surface of the satellite, officials at the US space agency revealed on Tuesday.
Cassini obtained the picture during a moderately close flyby on Sunday and captures the 53 mile (86 kilometer) sized moon from the anti-Saturn side. The images was taken with the spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 23,000 miles (37,000 kilometers).
Prometheus. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
The view, which was acquired Sun-Prometheus-spacecraft angle of 87 degrees, is at a 722 feet per pixel scale and was taken in visible light. The photograph joins PIA18186 and PIA12593 as the highest resolution images of the moon captured as part of the Cassini mission.
Prometheus orbits Saturn just interior to the narrow F ring, which can be seen at the top of this new picture. One of the science goals of the Cassini mission, according to NASA, was to study the interaction between Prometheus and the magnetosphere and ring system of Saturn.
More about this extremely irregular moon
Prometheus was first discovered by the Voyager team in 1980, and acts as what NASA refers to as a shepherding satellite, constraining the extent of the inner edge of the F Ring. It is extremely irregular and has visible craters, including some that are more than 12 miles (20 kilometers) big, but on the whole its surface has fewer such features than its closest neighbors.
The satellite, which was originally called S/1980 S27, was named in honor of character from Greek mythology that stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. Ironically, the moon itself is believed to be a porous, icy body with low density. Prometheus is located nearly 86,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) from Saturn and takes 14.7 hours to complete a single orbit.
In addition to studying the interactions between the moon and Saturn, Cassini scientists planned to use the spacecraft to determine its general characteristics and geological history, to define the different physical processes that created its surface, and to investigate the composition of surface materials distributed there.
Other moons photographed!
The flyby also afforded rare glimpses of some of Saturn’s other moons, including Atlas, Epimetheus, and Tethys.
Epimetheus. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Atlas. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Crescent of Tethys. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
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Feature Image: Cropped of original. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
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