The Cassini spacecraft captures a glimpse of the moon Atlas shortly after emerging from Saturn's shadow. Although the sunlight at Saturn's distance is feeble compared to that at the Earth, objects cut off from the Sun within Saturn's shadow cool off considerably.
Scientists study how the moons around Saturn cool and warm as they enter and leave Saturn's shadow to better understand the physical properties of Saturn's moons.
This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 44 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on January 23, 2014.
The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.6 million miles (2.6 million kilometers) from Atlas and at a Sun-Atlas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 93 degrees. Image scale is 10 miles (16 kilometers) per pixel.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
No comments:
Post a Comment