Moons in hiding

Moons in hiding
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Prometheus and Pandora are almost hidden in Saturn's rings in this image.

Prometheus (53 miles or 86 kilometers across) and Pandora (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) orbit along side Saturn's narrow F ring, which is shaped, in part, by their gravitational influences help to shape that ring. Their proximity to the rings also means that they often lie on the same line of sight as the rings, sometimes making them difficult to spot.

In this image, Prometheus is the left most moon in the ring plane, roughly in the center of the image. Pandora is towards the right.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 0.3 degrees below the . The image was taken in with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 6, 2015.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 994,000 miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Prometheus and at a Sun-Prometheus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 106 degrees. Image scale is 6 miles (10 kilometers) per pixel.

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

Provided by NASA

Citation: Moons in hiding (2015, September 23) retrieved 19 April 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2015-09-moons.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

Image: Prometheus creates gores and streamers in Saturn's F ring

22 shares

Feedback to editors