Titan and Tethys

The Cassini spacecraft watches a pair of Saturn's moons, showing the hazy orb of giant Titan beyond smaller Tethys.

In the foreground of the image, Ithaca Chasma can be seen running roughly north-south for more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on Tethys. See PIA07734 for a closer view. Titan's detached, high-altitude haze layer and north polar hood are also visible here. See PIA09739 and PIA08137 to learn more.

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing sides of Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) and Tethys (1,062 kilometers, or 660 miles across).

The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on October 18, 2010. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 2.5 million kilometers (1.6 million miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 55 degrees. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 55 degrees. Image scale is 15 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel on Titan and 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Tethys.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute