Rings, Rhea and Telesto

This Cassini spacecraft composition features Saturn's rings, its second largest moon, Rhea, and one of the planet's tiny moons, Telesto.

Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) is on the right. Telesto (25 kilometers, or 16 miles across) is near the middle of the image and appears as a bright speck. Saturn's rings are at the top of the image. The rings and Telesto have been brightened by a factor 1.6 relative to Rhea.

This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from just below the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on September 5, 2010. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (994,000 miles) from Telesto and 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Rhea. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Telesto and 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel on Rhea.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Telesto

The smooth surface of Saturn's moon Telesto is documented in this image captured during the Cassini spacecraft's August 27, 2009, flyby.

See PIA07696 to learn more about Telesto's lack of craters.

This view looks toward the leading hemisphere of Telesto (25 kilometers, or 16 miles across). North on the moon is up and rotated 3 degrees to the right.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 36,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) from Telesto and at a Sun-Telesto-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 48 degrees. Image scale is 214 meters (702 feet) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute