PIA11494: Star Companions


Star Companions

Caption:

Atlas is seen in this image with several background stars as the moon orbits within the Roche Division— the region between Saturn's A and F rings.

Atlas (30 kilometers, or 19 miles across) is in the top left quadrant of the image. For higher-resolution images of this saucer shaped moon, see PIA08405 .

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 65 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 23, 2009. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 913,000 kilometers (567,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 105 degrees. Image scale is 5 kilometers (3 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/ . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Saturn Rings A Ring, Atlas, F Ring, Saturn
System Saturn
Target Type Ring 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 2009-05-18
Date in Caption 2009-03-23
Image Credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11494
Identifier PIA11494