PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA06512: Enceladus in the Distance
 Target Name:  Enceladus
 Is a satellite of:  Saturn
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Instrument:  ISS - Narrow Angle
 Product Size:  1019 x 1018 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  CICLOPS/Space Science Institute
 Primary Data Set:  Cassini
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA06512.tif (581.4 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA06512.jpg (25.04 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 spied the moon Enceladus in the distance beyond Saturn's south pole in this image from Sept. 19, 2004.

This view was taken in wavelengths of ultraviolet light where gas molecules in Saturn's high atmosphere scatter a great deal of sunlight. Since Enceladus (499 kilometers, or 310 miles, across) has an unusually high reflectivity, its surface reflects even more of the light falling on it than Saturn does, making the moon appear very bright compared the planet. Enceladus was dimmed in brightness by a factor of three during processing of the image, in order to make its brightness comparable to that of Saturn.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera at a distance of 8.3 million kilometers (5.2 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 49 kilometers (30 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 Cassini-Huygens 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:
2004-11-03