Dramatic photo of Saturn shows off a tiny moon floating in the distance
时间:2024-09-22 11:22:04 出处:新闻中心阅读(143)
An itty bitty moon looks like nothing more than a point of light above Saturn in a new photo taken by a venerable spacecraft exploring the ringed planet.
The moon, called Mimas, is only about 246 miles miles in diameter and features a distinctive crater that makes it look eerily similar to the Death Star (of Star Wars fame).
SEE ALSO:Please send me to Saturn's 'Death Star moon' so that I may climb its mountainsBut you can't really see any of that in this image taken by the Cassini spacecraft.
Instead, Saturn's north polar hexagon -- an oddly shaped jet stream surrounding a raging storm -- dominates this view, with the planet's rings peeking out on the horizon.
Over the course of its more than 10 years exploring the Saturnian system of rings and moons, the Cassini spacecraft has taken plenty of beautiful black and white photos like this one.
Maybe the thing that makes this image particularly special is the perspective you get from it.
The shear size of Saturn when compared to Mimas is staggering, and that really comes across.
(Oh, and yes, Saturn totally looks like a boob in this photo.)
Cassini snapped this shot when it was about 617,000 miles from Saturn in March.
The spacecraft is currently in an orbit that brings it between Saturn and its plane of rings, a part of space that no other probe has been to before.
Cassini will continue in this orbit until the end of its mission in September, when it will make a planned death dive into the planet's atmosphere, ending its mission.
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