CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Janus from Afar

Janus from Afar
PIA 17146
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   Cassini's narrow angle camera captures Saturn's tiny irregular moon Janus surrounded by the vast, expanse of the outer solar system.

Janus (111 miles, 179 kilometers across) shares an orbit with the moon Epimetheus; the two moons change orbital positions roughly every four years.

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing side of Janus. North on Janus is up and rotated 38 degrees to the left. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 10, 2013.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 621,000 miles (1 million kilometers) from Janus. Raw image scale is 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) per pixel. This image has been zoomed in by a factor of 2 to enhance the visibility of Janus.

The Cassini Solstice 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 Solstice Mission visit http://ciclops.org, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Released: January 6, 2014 (PIA 17146)
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