Moons Beyond Rings at Saturn
Explanation:
What's happened to that moon of Saturn?
Nothing -- Saturn's moon
Rhea is just partly hidden behind Saturn's rings.
In 2010, the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting Saturn took
this narrow-angle view looking across the
Solar System's most
famous rings.
Rings visible in the foreground include the thin
F ring on the outside and the much wider
A and B rings just interior to it.
Although it seems to be hovering
over the rings, Saturn's moon
Janus is actually far behind them.
Janus is one of
Saturn's smaller
moons
and measures only about 180 kilometers across.
Farther out from the camera is the heavily cratered
Rhea, a much larger moon
measuring 1,500 kilometers across.
The top of Rhea is visible only through
gaps in the rings.
After more than a decade of exploration and discovery, the
Cassini spacecraft ran
low on fuel in 2017 and was directed to
enter Saturn's atmosphere,
where it surely
melted.
Explore Your Universe:
Random APOD Generator
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
