Tiny Epimetheus Outside the Rings

Saturn’s moon Epimetheus just beneath the ring. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI Click to enlarge.
Saturn’s moon Epimetheus is seen here from just beneath the ring plane, along with Saturn’s intriguing F ring. The bright, knotted core of the F ring is flanked on both sides by thin, dusty strands. The outer part of the A ring is visible at the left. Epimetheus is 116 kilometers (72 miles) across.

Part of the little moon’s night side is illuminated by reflected light from the planet. For a closer view of Epimetheus see Epimetheus: Up-Close and Colorful.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 30, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Epimetheus and at a Sun-Epimetheus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 93 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Original Source: NASA/JPL/SSI News Release