PIA08981: Above the Fray


Above the Fray

Caption:

Epimetheus floats above Saturn's swirling skies.

Beyond Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across), the narrow F ring appears dark from this vantage point, against the much brighter planet. The three largest gaps in the rings -- the Keeler and Encke Gaps and the Cassini Division -- appear as bright regions in the darkened ringplane.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 7 degrees above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 1, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Epimetheus. Image scale is 12 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.

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 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/home/index.cfm . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Epimetheus Cassini Division, Encke Gap, F Ring, Saturn Rings
System Saturn
Target Type Satellite Gap, Ring
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 2007-07-11
Date in Caption 2007-06-01
Image Credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08981
Identifier PIA08981