PIA17144: A Song of Ice and Light


A Song of Ice and Light

Caption:

Saturn's moon Enceladus drifts before the rings and the tiny moon Pandora in this view captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 1, 2009. The entire scene is backlit by the Sun, providing striking illumination for the icy particles that make up both the rings and the jets emanating from the south pole of Enceladus, which is about 314 miles (505 km) across. Pandora, which is about (52 miles, 84 kilometers) wide, was on the opposite side of the rings from Cassini and Enceladus when the image was taken. This view looks toward the night side on Pandora as well, which is lit by dim golden light reflected from Saturn.

This natural-color image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 149,600 miles (240,800 kilometers) from Enceladus and 352,200 miles (566,800 kilometers) from Pandora.

Background Info:

The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. 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, Colorado.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and https://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at https://ciclops.org .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Enceladus Pandora, Saturn
System Saturn
Target Type Satellite Planet
Mission Cassini-Huygens
Instrument Host Cassini Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
Detector Narrow Angle Camera
Extra Keywords Color, Visual
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2018-02-12
Date in Caption 2009-11-01
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17144
Identifier PIA17144