Friday 14 April 2017

Cassini Sees 'Flying-Saucer' Moon Atlas Up Close


These raw, unprocessed images of Saturn's moon, Atlas, were taken on April 12, 2017, by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The flyby had a close-approach distance of about 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers).

These images are the closest ever taken of Atlas and will help to characterize its shape and geology. Atlas (19 miles, or 30 kilometers across) orbits Saturn just outside the A ring -- the outermost of the planet's bright, main rings.

Additional raw images from Cassini are available at:

http://ift.tt/2nALlPF

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Caltech in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

More information about Cassini:

http://ift.tt/ZjpQgB

http://ift.tt/Jcddhk

News Media Contact

Preston Dyches

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-394-7013

preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

2017-107



from News and Features http://ift.tt/2owRJHi
via IFTTT

No comments:

Post a Comment

NASA Astronaut Nick Hague Boosts Human Health Research in Space

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 commander Nick Hague is pictured in his flight suit during training at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Californi...