This image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows three moons — Rhea (top), Titan and Mimas (bottom). Titan appears fuzzy because we only see its cloud layers and light refracts within its atmosphere, extending the crescent. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.The three moons shown here — Titan (3,200 miles or 5,150 kilometres across), Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometres across), and Rhea (949 miles or 1,527 kilometres across) — show marked contrasts. Titan, the largest moon in this image, appears fuzzy because we only see its cloud layers. And because Titan’s atmosphere refracts light around the moon, its crescent “wraps” just a little further around the moon than it would on an airless body. Rhea (upper left) appears rough because its icy surface is heavily cratered. And a close inspection of Mimas (centre bottom), though difficult to see at this scale, shows surface irregularities due to its own violent history.
This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Titan. North on Titan is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 25, 2015.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (2.0 million kilometres) from Titan where the image scale is 75 miles (121 kilometres) per pixel. Mimas was 1.9 million miles (3.1 million kilometres) away with an image scale of 11.4 miles (18.4 kilometers) per pixel, while Rhea was 2.2 million miles (3.5 million kilometres) away with an image scale of 13.1 miles (21.1 kilometres) per pixel.
NASA’s Cassini orbiter sailed through the tenuous outermost reaches of Saturn’s atmosphere without trouble Monday, performing the first of five close swings nearer to the planet than any previous spacecraft before a final dive Sept. 15 to end the probe’s nearly 20-year mission.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft — in its 11th year orbiting Saturn — has spotted the gas giant and its haze-covered moon Titan suspended in the blackness of space like diamonds in the rough.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004, studying the giant planet, its rings and its moons. Among the myriad microscopic grains collected by Cassini, a special three dozen stand out from the crowd. Scientists conclude these specks of material came from interstellar space — the space between the stars.
