Saturn and its moon Dione
Image obtained by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft of Saturn and its moon Dione. The surface of Dione, which exhibits contrasting bright and dark areas when viewed up close, appears pale in this image. It is Saturn's multi-hued cloud bands that boldly steal the show. Discrete clouds and eddies in Saturn's northern hemisphere can be seen within the faint shadows of the rings on the planet. Dione is 1,118 kilometers (695 miles) across. Images taken with red, green and blue filters were used to create this natural-color view. The images were obtained with the wide-angle camera on Sept. 22, 2005, from a distance of approximately 803,000 kilometers (499,000 miles) from Dione and at a sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 43 degrees. The image scale is about 48 kilometers (30 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
Size: 3000px × 3000px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 2005, 21st, 22nd, agency, astronomical, astronomy, cassini, cassini-huygens, century, dione, edge-, esa, european, exploration, gas, giant, isa, italian, mission, moon, nasa, plane, planet, planetary, ring, ringed, rings, saturn, science, september, shadow, shadows, solar, space, spacecraft, system
