Field of Moons

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Caption:

A color portrait of Saturn's sunlight-scattering rings hosts a group of several moons.

Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) is visible at top. At bottom, in increasing distance from the rings are Pandora (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across), Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) and Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across).

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 10 degrees above the ringplane. Saturn's shadow can be seen on the rings at upper left.

Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this composite color view.

The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 22, 2007. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is about 110 kilometers (68 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 .

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