A pair of Saturn's moons appears as if hung below the planet's rings in this Cassini spacecraft view.
Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across) appears just below the rings here, near the center of the image. Tethys (660 miles, or 1,062 kilometers across) is near the bottom center of the image. Tethys is closer to Cassini than is Enceladus.
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 wide-angle camera on September 13, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 169,000 miles (272,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 135 degrees. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 129,000 miles (208,000 kilometers) from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 135 degrees. Image scale is 10 miles (16 kilometers) per pixel on Enceladus and 7 miles (12 kilometers) per pixel on Tethys.
Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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