Janus Patrols Saturn's Rings : Big Pic
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Sept. 2, 2010 -- Janus, one of Saturn's inner moons, orbits beyond the gas giant's rings in this curious photograph by the Cassini-Equinox mission taken on July 20, 2010.
SLIDE SHOW: The Moons of Saturn.
The small (111 mile-wide) potato-shaped Saturnian satellite is heavily cratered and icy. It also shares its orbit with another moon, Epimetheus. Between this co-orbiting pair, astronomers have noticed they produce a ring of their own -- the left-overs of eons of meteorite pummeling kicking dust into space.
In this scene, Janus is actually located far beyond Saturn's rings, 1.3 million miles from Cassini's narrow-angle camera. The reason for the odd-looking perspective of the rings is that the orbiting spacecraft is close to the ringplane, giving the impression the tiny moon is a lot closer than it is.
Read more Discovery News coverage about Saturn's moons.
Images courtesy of NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
-- Ian O'Neill, Discovery News
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