10 September 2007
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
NASA recently published an awesome image of Saturn's rings and two of its 60 moons, acquired by the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft. Dione (1,126 km across) dominates the picture, loaming in the foreground of the rings. Tiny Atlas (32 km across) shines through the rings, to the lower left of Dione.
Interestingly, Dione resembles a ball rolling down an inclined plane. Dione is an icy moon, whose composition is believed to be primarily water ice with a considerable proportion of rocks.
The view looks toward the leading hemisphere of Dione. North is up and rotated 25° to the right. The spacecraft was looking on the illuminated side of the rings from less than 1° below the ringplane.
The image was taken in visual green light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera on 22 July 2007. The spacecraft was at a distance of approximately 695,000 km from Dione. Image scale is 4 km per pixel.
Further Reading
Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm
Dione
http://www.nineplanets.org/dione.html
Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem
Senior Astronomy Specialist