PIA06155: Dione and Saturn
 Target Name:  Dione
 Is a satellite of:  Saturn
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Instrument:  ISS - Wide Angle
 Product Size:  1015 x 935 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  CICLOPS/Space Science Institute
 Primary Data Set:  Cassini
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA06155.tif (1.694 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA06155.jpg (36.89 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Cassini captured Dione against the globe of Saturn as it approached the icy moon for its close rendezvous on Dec. 14, 2004. This natural color view shows the moon has strong variations in brightness across its surface, but a remarkable lack of color, compared to the warm hues of Saturn's atmosphere. Several oval-shaped storms are present in the planet's atmosphere, along with ripples and waves in the cloud bands.

The images used to create this view were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 603,000 kilometers (375,000 miles) from Dione through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of ultraviolet light centered at 338 nanometers. The Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle is 34 degrees. The image scale is about 32 kilometers (20 miles) per pixel.

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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Image Addition Date:
2004-12-16