Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Eye Toward Aegaeon


The Cassini spacecraft looks toward Saturn's tiny moon Aegaeon within the G-ring arc.

The moonlet Aegaeon (formerly known as S/2008 S 1) can't be seen in this image, but it orbits in the bright arc of Saturn's faint G ring shown here. See PIA11148 to learn more.

Many background stars are visibly elongated by the motion of the spacecraft during the image's exposure. 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 July 4, 2011. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.5 million kilometers (1.6 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 14 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel.

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

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