Images captured by cameras aboard the Cassini spacecraft on its mission to explore Saturn and its moons.
Looking Over Enceladus
The Cassini spacecraft looks over cratered and tectonically deformed terrain on Saturn’s moon Enceladus as the camera also catches a glimpse of the planet’s rings in the background. The image was captured during the spacecraft’s flyby of Enceladus on Nov. 30, 2010.
Geologically young terrain in the middle latitudes of the moon gives way to older, cratered terrain in the northern latitudes. See PIA11685 to learn more. This view is centered on terrain at 41 degrees north latitude, 202 degrees west longitude. North on Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles, across) is up and rotated 28 degrees to the right.
This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from less than a degree above the ringplane.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 46,000 kilometers (29,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 14 degrees. Image scale is 276 meters (906 feet) per pixel.
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.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Rings on a Diagonal
A pair of Saturn’s small satellites, Janus and Pandora, accompany the planet’s rings in this Cassini spacecraft image presenting the view in dramatic diagonal fashion.
The rings are between the two moons. Janus, just above the center of the image, is most distant here. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane, and toward the leading hemisphere of Pandora (81 km across) and the trailing hemisphere of Janus (179 km across).
The image was taken in visible light on April 11, 2010, acquired at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers from Janus and 1.8 million kilometers from Pandora. Scale is about 11 kilometers per pixel on both moons.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Enceladus AfarEnceladus is seen here, across the unilluminated side of Saturn’s rings. A hint of the moon’s active south polar region can be seen as a just slightly dark area at bottom. Enceladus is 505 kilometers across. The image was taken in polarized green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 27, 2007.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Rebel Base in RangeGray Mimas appears to hover above the colorful rings. The large crater seen on the right side of the moon is named for William Herschel, who discovered Mimas in 1789. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2007 at a distance of approximately 3.151 million kilometers from Mimas.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Grandeur of the RingsFrom on high, the Cassini spacecraft spies a group of three ring moons in their travels around Saturn. Janus is seen at top, while Pandora hugs the outer edge of the narrow F ring. More difficult to spot is Pan, which is a mere speck in this view. Pan can be seen in the Encke Gap, near center left. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 7, 2008 at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers from Saturn.
See a labeled Cassini map of the rings.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Rings and JanusJanus, passing between the rings and Cassini, poses for a snapshot taken by the spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera.
In this image, Janus (179 kilometers across) is closer to Cassini than are the rings. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. Janus has been brightened by a factor of 1.5 relative to the rings.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 28, 2009. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometers from Janus. Image scale is 14 kilometers per pixel.
Source: NASA/JPL
put on your 3-d glasses now
(via soley)
in january of 1996 Voyager 2 took pictures of rings around uranus (oh, come on grow up) (jk jk don’t)
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