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> Titan and Mimas near Saturn seen by Cassini spacecraft

Titan and Mimas near Saturn seen by Cassini spacecraft

author: Nasa/JPL/SSI/Novapix

reference: a-sat05-10039

Image Size 300 DPI: 12 * 12 cm

The image shows the majestic ringed planet, with bands of colorful clouds in its southern hemisphere. The planet's northern extremes have a cool bluish hue, due to scattering of blue wavelengths of sunlight by the cloud-free upper atmosphere there. Long shadows of the icy rings stretch across the north. A grayish, oval-shaped storm is visible in Saturn's southern hemisphere and is easily 475 kilometers (295 miles) across - the size of some hurricanes on Earth. Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) is visible near lower right with its thick, orange-colored atmosphere, and faint Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) appears just right of the rings' outer edge. Images taken in the red, green and blue filters with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on Dec. 14, 2004, were combined to create this color view at a distance of approximately 719,000 kilometers (447,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 43 kilometers (27 miles) per pixel.

Keywords for this photo:

2004 - ASTRONOMY - CASSINI - MIMAS - RING - SATELLITE - SATURN - SATURN'S MOON - TITAN -