The Cassini spacecraft looks toward the south pole of Enceladus, with a
glimpse of Saturns rings in the distance, during the spacecrafts close
flyby Nov. 2, 2009.
See PIA08386 to learn more about the
active south pole of Enceladus. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn
side of Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across). The rings have
been brightened relative to Enceladus to increase visibility.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft
wide-angle camera on Nov. 2, 2009. The view was acquired at a distance of
approximately 10,400 kilometers (6,500 miles) from Enceladus and at a
Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 6 degrees. Image scale is 630
meters (2,100 feet) 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.
