CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
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Impact Central
PIA 06575
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   This view of the trailing hemisphere of Rhea (1,528 kilometers, 949 miles across) shows the region's bright wispy markings, but also shows off the moon's craters in great detail. Of particular interest to imaging scientists is the distribution and orientation of the many craters with polygonal rims. These are craters with rough, angular shapes, rather than smooth, circular ones.

This image was taken in visible light with the narrow angle camera on January 16, 2005, from a distance of approximately 500,000 kilometers (311,000 miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 35 degrees. (PIA06578 is a true color version of this image.) Resolution in the original image was about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. The image has been rotated so that north on Rhea is up. Contrast was enhanced and the image was magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. 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-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Released: February 1, 2005 (PIA 06575)
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