More Cassini Eye Candy: Infrared Saturn, Peek-a-boo Moons
Written by Nancy Atkinson
The "wow" factor from the Cassini mission never quits. Here's the latest image, released just today of Saturn, viewed in near-infrared. This image was taken with Cassini's wide-angle camera on Oct. 23, 2009 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light, centered at 890 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.6 million kilometers (1.6 million miles) from Saturn. The large shadow south of the equator is from the moon Tethys (1062 kilometers, 660 miles across). The small shadow near the limb of the planet, north of the equator, is the shadow of the moon Mimas (396 kilometers, 246 miles across). Absolutely stunning.
See below for more Cassini goodness of moons playing peek-a-boo with the rings and each other.
Moons hiding behind Saturn's rings. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Here, Janus and another moon hide behind Saturn's rings.
You don't see this every day: a crescent Enceladus being eclipsed by a crescent Rhea. Gorgeous!
Click on the images to go directly to the Cassini image pages. See more gorgeous shots at CICLOPS
Filed under: Saturn
Tags: Cassini, SaturnRelated stories on Universe Today
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November 20th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I just want to be there, floating in a glass sphere and listening to Pink Floyd.