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Explanation: Caught in sunlight, icy moon Mimas shines above a broad shadow across gas giant Saturn. In this remarkable image from the Cassini spacecraft, tiny Mimas is at the upper right. The broad shadow across the giant planet is cast by Saturn's dense B ring with intriguing threadlike shadows from Saturn's inner C ring arrayed below. While the B and C rings are otherwise not visible here, the very narrow outer F ring lies toward the bottom of the image as well as a section of the partly transparent A ring and its 300 kilometer wide Encke gap crisscrossing the ring shadows. Sunlight streaming through the much larger Cassini gap that separates the A and B rings is responsible for the bright band seen above Mimas. The Cassini gap itself is just off the bottom of this cropped view. Orbiting well beyond Saturn's F ring, Mimas is a mere 400 kilometers in diameter.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Mimas - Saturn - Saturn rings
Publications with words: Mimas - Saturn - Saturn rings
See also:
- APOD: 2025 February 23 Á Saturn in Infrared from Cassini
- APOD: 2025 January 12 Á Mimas: Small Moon with a Big Crater
- APOD: 2024 December 8 Á Aurora around Saturns North Pole
- Saturn at Night
- APOD: 2024 August 27 Á Moon Eclipses Saturn
- APOD: 2024 June 23 Á The Colors of Saturn from Cassini
- A Season of Saturn