PIA12770: Sliver of Enceladus


Sliver of Enceladus

Caption:

The Cassini spacecraft captures a crescent of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

See PIA11688 and PIA11685 to learn about this moon and the spectacular water ice plumes emanating from its south polar region.

Lit terrain seen here is in the area between the leading hemisphere and Saturn-facing side of Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across). North on Enceladus is up.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 10, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 259,000 kilometers (161,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 125 degrees. Image scale is 2 kilometers (6,600 feet) per pixel.

Background Info:

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 Enceladus 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 Grayscale, Plume, Visual, Water
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2011-06-13
Date in Caption 2011-05-10
Image Credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12770
Identifier PIA12770