The Cassini spacecraft spies Pan speeding through the Encke Gap, its own private path around Saturn.
Illumination is from the lower left here, revealing about half of Pan (26 kilometers, or 16 miles across) in sunlight.
This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 35 degrees above the ringplane.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 19, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1 million kilometers (600,000 miles) from Pan. Image scale is 6 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .
Name | Value | Additional Values |
---|---|---|
Target | Saturn Rings | Encke Gap, Pan, Saturn |
System | Saturn | |
Target Type | Ring | Gap, Planet, Satellite |
Mission | Cassini-Huygens | |
Instrument Host | Cassini Orbiter | |
Host Type | Orbiter | |
Instrument | Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) | |
Detector | Narrow Angle Camera | |
Extra Keywords | Grayscale, Visual | |
Acquisition Date | ||
Release Date | 2007-03-05 | |
Date in Caption | 2007-01-19 | |
Image Credit | NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute | |
Source | photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08889 | |
Identifier | PIA08889 |