Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Rhea


The surface of Saturn's moon Rhea bears witness to its violent history. Each crater seen here records an impact in the moon's past.

On some of Rhea's terrains, craters are so densely packed that they lie on top of each other, newer impacts often erasing the older craters. Rhea is 949 miles, or 1,528 kilometers across.

This view is centered on terrain at 38 degrees north latitude, 290 degrees west longitude. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on December 22, 2012.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 19,000 miles (31,000 kilometers) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 30 degrees. Image scale is 600 feet (183 meters) per pixel.

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

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