Image: Saturn's rings dividing Dione

Image: Saturn's rings dividing Dione
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Dione appears cut in two by Saturn's razor-thin rings, seen nearly edge-on in a view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This scene was captured from just 0.02 degrees above the ring plane.

The bright streaks of Dione's wispy terrain (see PIA12553) are seen near the moon's limb at right. The medium-sized crater Turnus (63 miles, 101 kilometers, wide) is visible along Dione's terminator.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 25, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 115 degrees. Image scale is 8.6 miles (13.8 kilometers) per pixel.

Provided by NASA

Citation: Image: Saturn's rings dividing Dione (2016, February 17) retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2016-02-image-saturn-dione.html
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