January 30, 2017

Saturn's moon Dione

Saturn's moon Dione

Dione's lit hemisphere faces away from Cassini's camera, yet the moon's darkened surface features are dimly illuminated in this image, due to Saturnshine.

Although direct sunlight provides the best illumination for imaging, light reflected off of Saturn can do the job as well. In this image, Dione (698 miles or 1,123 kilometers across) is above Saturn's day side, and the moon's night side is faintly illuminated by sunlight reflected off the planet's disk.

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing side of Dione. North on Dione is up and rotated 8 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on October 23, 2016.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 313,000 miles (504,000 kilometers) from Dione. Image scale is 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) per pixel.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Explanation from: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20514

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