CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Rhea Past Rings

Cassini looks past Saturn's rings and small moon Janus to spy the planet's second largest moon, Rhea.

Janus is closest to Cassini here. The rings are between Janus (179 kilometers, 111 miles across) and Rhea (1528 kilometers, 949 miles across). Lit terrain seen on Rhea is on the leading hemisphere of that moon. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 11, 2010. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 3 million kilometers (1.9 million miles) from Rhea and approximately 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Janus. Image scale is 18 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel on Rhea. Image scale is 14 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel on Janus.

The Cassini Equinox Mission is a joint United States and European endeavor. 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 was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini Equinox Mission visit http://ciclops.org, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Released: July 29, 2010 (PIA 12687)
Image/Caption Information 		  Rhea Past Rings
PIA 12687
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