Cassini captures stunning image of Dione's transit of Saturn

September 1, 2015

Bill Condie

Bill Condie is a science journalist based in Adelaide, Australia.

While the image is stunning, it has a practical purpose, too. By timing transits in the Saturn system, scientists can more precisely determine the orbital parameters of Saturn’s moons, given they know Dione’s diameter is 1,123 kilometres.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 0.3 degrees below the ring plane. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 21 May, 2015.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometres from Saturn.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.nasa.gov/cassini The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org