PIA06478: Hovering Mimas


Hovering Mimas

Caption:

Saturn's moon Mimas hangs in the sky above Saturn's rings in this Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera image from Aug. 3, 2004. Saturn's shadow stretches across the rings at bottom right, while several bright clumps in the F ring orbit the planet. Mimas is 398 kilometers (247 miles) wide.

The image was taken in visible light with the narrow angle camera at a distance of 8 million kilometers (5 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 48 kilometers (30 miles) per pixel. Contrast was slightly enhanced to aid visibility.

Background Info:

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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Mimas F Ring, Saturn, Saturn Rings
System Saturn
Target Type Satellite Planet, Ring
Mission Cassini-Huygens
Instrument Host Cassini Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
Detector Narrow Angle Camera
Extra Keywords Clump, Shadow, Visual
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2004-09-16
Date in Caption 2004-08-03
Image Credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06478
Identifier PIA06478