Numerous stars provide a serene background in this view of Enceladus
captured by the Cassini spacecraft while the moon was in eclipse, within
Saturn's shadow
The view looks up at Enceladus' south pole.
Although they are not visible at this viewing angle, the icy moon's famed
jets are aimed toward the spacecraft as it acquired this image.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft
wide-angle camera on Oct. 9, 2008 at a distance of approximately 83,000
kilometers (52,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a
Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 73 degrees. Image scale is 5
kilometers (3 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 operations center is based at the Space
Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team
homepage is at http://ciclops.org.