Cassini image captures five of Saturn’s moons in one frame

This colour image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, captured on 29 July 2011, shows five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame. Left to right: Janus (179 kilometres/111 miles across), Pandora, just beyond the thin F ring (81/kilometres/50 miles across), Enceladus (504 kilometres/313 miles across), Mimas (396 kilometres/246 miles across) and Rhea, Saturn’s second largest moon (1,528 kilometres/949 miles across). Saturn’s thin rings extend across the center of the image while the planet itself is out of view to the right.

Taken from a distance of 1.1 million kilometres (684,000 miles) from Rhea, Cassini was just above the ring plane, looking toward the northern sunlit side of the rings, when the view was captured. Rhea, Mimas and Enceladus are beyond the rings. A black-and-white view was published in 2011. Cassini’s mission ended on 15 September 2017.

Five of Saturn’s moons are visible in a single frame captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2011. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute