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  

PIA09890: The Orbiting Fleet
 Target Name:  S Rings
 Is a satellite of:  Saturn
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Instrument:  ISS - Wide Angle
 Product Size:  1020 x 849 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Cassini Imaging Team
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA09890.tif (867.1 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA09890.jpg (48.99 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:

A fleet of small moons patrols the outskirts of Saturn's icy rings.

The shepherd moons Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) and Pandora (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across) are seen respectively interior and exterior to the narrow F ring at lower left.

Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) appears at center right, and Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) is visible at lower right.

A 2007 movie sequence acquired during a Cassini ringplane crossing (PIA08356) presents a similar view, with moons in motion.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 14 degrees above the ringplane. A background star is faintly visible directly between Prometheus and Mimas.

The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on March 16, 2008. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (960,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 97 kilometers (60 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.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Image Addition Date:
2008-04-29