Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Dione Above the Rings


Saturn's third largest moon, Dione, appears like a solitary ornament suspended above the rings in this Cassini spacecraft view.

Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemisphere of Dione (1,123 kilometers, or 698 miles across). North on Dione is up and rotated 1 degree to the right.

The rings are closer to Cassini in this view, with Dione more distant. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 11, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 3.2 million kilometers (2 million miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 85 degrees. Image scale is 19 kilometers (12 miles) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

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