This shadowy scene is one of the Cassini spacecraft's closest views of Saturn's moon Janus.
The slopes of some craters here display hints of the darker material better seen on Epimetheus in PIA09813. A bright linear feature runs up the wall of the large crater at bottom center.
The view looks toward southern latitudes on Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across). North is toward the top of the image and rotated 58 degrees to the right.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 30, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 33,000 kilometers (21,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 120 degrees. Image scale is 200 meters (656 feet) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA10447: Profile of Janus sur le site de la NASA.
Craters cover the rugged surface of Saturn's moon Janus.
The view is from 42 degrees above the moon's equator. North on Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) is towards the top of the image.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 17, 2008 using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of polarized green light centered at 617 and 568 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 350,000 kilometers (217,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 101 degrees. Image scale is 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA10407: Ragged Crescent sur le site de la NASA.
This close-up look at Saturn's moon Janus reveals spots on the moon's surface which may be dark material exposed by impacts. If the dark markings within bright terrain are indeed impact features, then Janus' surface represents a contrast with that of Saturn's moon Phoebe, where impacts have uncovered bright material beneath a darker overlying layer. Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across.
Janus may be a porous body, composed mostly of water ice.
This image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 20, 2005, at a distance of approximately 357,000 kilometers (222,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 6 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel. The view was magnified by a factor of two and contrast-enhanced to aid visibility of the moon's surface.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org.
Saturn's battered moon Janus wears the record of its long history of impacts.
Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) orbits just beyond the outer reaches of Saturn's A and F rings, which are seen here.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 4 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 28, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (703,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 28 degrees. Image scale is 7 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA10507: Scarred Janus sur le site de la NASA.
The Cassini spacecraft provides this dramatic portrait of Janus against the cloud-streaked backdrop of Saturn.
Like many small bodies in the solar system, Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) is potato-shaped with many craters, and the moon has a surface that looks as though it has been smoothed by some process. Like Pandora (see PIA07632) and Telesto (see PIA07696), Janus may be covered with a mantle of fine dust-sized, icy material.
The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 930 nanometers. The view was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 25, 2006 at a distance of approximately 145,000 kilometers (90,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 62 degrees. North on Saturn is up. Image scale is 871 meters (2,858 feet) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
The Cassini spacecraft snapped this exquisite, close-up view of Saturn's moon Janus, looking toward the south polar region, on Feb. 20, 2008.
Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 169,000 kilometers (105,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 71 degrees. Image scale is 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA09872: Janus: Down South sur le site de la NASA.
Saturn's icy, impact-riddled moon Mimas slips briefly in front of Saturn's moon Janus in this movie from Cassini. Mimas is 397 kilometers (247 miles) across, while Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across.
The movie was created from 37 original images taken over the course of 20 minutes as the spacecraft's narrow-angle camera remained pointed toward Janus. Although Mimas moves a greater distance across the field of view, Janus also moved perceptibly during this time. The images were aligned to keep Janus close to the center of the scene. Additional frames were inserted between the 37 Cassini images in order to smooth the appearance of Mimas' movement--a scheme called interpolation. Close-up images from the few minutes surrounding the occultation are arranged into a strip along the bottom of the movie.
The terrain on Mimas seen here is about 80 degrees west of the terrain seen in a previously released movie (see PIA06198), which showed the little moon appearing to cross Saturn's ring plane from Cassini's vantage point. In that previous movie, the rim of the large impact crater Herschel (130 kilometers, or 80 miles wide) was visible as a flattening of the moon's eastern limb. In the new movie, Herschel is almost at dead center.
Contrast on Janus was mildly enhanced to aid the visibility of its surface. The right side of Mimas appears bright because the moon was partly overexposed in this image sequence.
The images for this movie were taken in visible light on March 5, 2005, when Cassini was approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Mimas and 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Janus. The image scale is approximately 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.
Cassini looks down toward Janus, which hugs the outer edges of Saturn's rings. Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) orbits Saturn about 11,250 kilometers (6,990 miles) beyond the narrow core of the F ring.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 6 degrees above the ringplane.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 26, 2007. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.2 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 31 degrees. Image scale is 13 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA09808: Facing Janus sur le site de la NASA.
Craters large and small cover the rugged surface of Saturn's moon Janus.
This view looks toward the southern hemisphere of Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across at its widest point). The moon's south pole is at center.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 26, 2008 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 930 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 186,000 kilometers (115,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 83 degrees. Image scale is 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA10417: Rugged Janus sur le site de la NASA.
Cassini was nearly in the plane of Saturn's rings when it took this image of Janus. The nearly edge-on rings appear almost ribbon-like in this view, and some surface detail is visible on the small moon. Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 18, 2005, at a distance of approximately 911,000 kilometers (566,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 101 degrees. The image scale is 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.
The month of January is named for the mythical Roman god Janus, who guarded the gate of heaven. Cassini spied the heavily cratered, irregularly shaped moon of Saturn as it glided along in its orbit, about 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) beyond the bright core of the narrow F ring. Only vague hints of the moon's surface morphology are visible from this distance. Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Jan. 22, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.5 million kilometers (1.6 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 15 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.
The Cassini spacecraft catches a hint of topography on Janus, which orbits Saturn just outside the planet's narrow F ring.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 12 degrees above the ringplane. Janus is 179 kilometers (111 miles) across.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 14, 2008. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 22 degrees. Image scale is 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA09914: Shadows of Janus sur le site de la NASA.
Janus peeks out from beneath the ringplane, partially lit here by reflected light from Saturn. A couple of craters can be seen on the moon's surface. To the right, two faint clumps of material can be seen in the dynamic F ring.
The perspective in this view may be a bit confusing -- from just below the ringplane, Cassini is gazing toward Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across), which is behind the rings.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 16, 2006, at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 103 degrees. Image scale is 12 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Saturn's luminescent rings provide striking contrasts of light and darkness, as the irregular shape of Janus glides across the foreground.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from less than a degree above the ringplane.
For a closer view of Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) see PIA08296.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 29, 2008. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Janus. Image scale is 7 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA09866: Saturn Noir sur le site de la NASA.
The irregularly-shaped moon Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) and the small ring moon Atlas (32 kilometers, 20 miles across) had just emerged from the darkness of Saturn's shadow when Cassini caught this view of the two moons.
Saturn's bright A ring is largely overexposed in this view, but several other ring details are nicely visible. The image shows two bright regions within the B ring (at right), ringlets of material within the dark, narrow Encke Gap and kinks in the F ring.
North on Saturn is tilted toward upper left. This view is from Cassini's vantage point beneath the ring plane. It is notable that, as Saturn orbits the Sun, its shadow has been steadily creeping farther out along the ring plane and now extends beyond the F ring.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 26, 2005, at a distance of approximately 3.2 million kilometers (2 million miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 81 degrees. The image scale is 19 kilometers (12 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.
This close pairing of Janus and Epimetheus shows the two moons at "high phase," meaning that only a thin sliver of sunlit terrain is visible on each moon. Portions of each are also lit feebly by reflected light from Saturn.
Here, Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) is at top and Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) is below.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 25, 2005, at a distance of approximately 479,000 kilometers (298,000 miles) from Janus and 455,000 kilometers (283,000 miles) from Epimetheus. The image scale is about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel on both moons.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
The Roman god Janus is usually depicted with two faces, one looking forward and one behind. Janus is captured here by Cassini, showing two faces of its own.
This view shows a sliver of Janus's dayside, plus much of the dark side. Part of the darkened terrain to the left is lit dimly by reflected light from Saturn, revealing craters there.
North on Janus is up in this image. A brightly sunlit view of Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) can be seen in PIA07529.
The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 2, 2005, at a distance of approximately 541,000 kilometers (336,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 147 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org.
Janus skirts the edges of Saturn's main rings. The Cassini spacecraft has shown that this small moon and its co-orbital companion, Epimetheus, also share their orbit with a diffuse ring of fine particles.
See PIA08322 for more information about the Janus-Epimetheus ring.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 11 degrees above the ringplane. Above Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across), at upper left, are the narrow F ring and the outer part of the A ring.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 19, 2008. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (940,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 21 degrees. Image scale is 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA09843: A True "Ring Moon" sur le site de la NASA.
The Cassini spacecraft captures a far-off view of Saturn's irregularly shaped, icy moon Janus.
North on Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across at its widest point) is toward the top of the image.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 10, 2008. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 886,000 kilometers (551,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 33 degrees. Image scale is 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA10427: Mountain of Ice sur le site de la NASA.
The Cassini spacecraft provides a window on the awesome scale of the Saturn system, with the giant planet dominating one of its smaller satellites.
Orbiting here, just outside the main ring system, is Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across).
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 16 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 13, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Janus and 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Janus.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA09871: Pebble in a Pond sur le site de la NASA.
This close-up view of Saturn's moon Janus shows what appear to be two large craters near the boundary between day and night. The left side of the moon is lit feebly by reflected light from Saturn. Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 18, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (684,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 108 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 7 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of three to aid visibility.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.
On a high-inclination orbit of Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft gazes down at the north polar region of Janus.
This view looks toward Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) from a perspective 72 degrees north of the moon's equator. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 14, 2008 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 259,000 kilometers (161,000 miles) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 78 degrees. Image scale is 2 kilometers (5,085 feet) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Voir l'image PIA10455: North on Janus sur le site de la NASA.
Janus floats above the meandering clouds of Saturn. A few of the large craters on the moon are just visible.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 18 degrees above the ringplane. Saturn's narrow F ring and outer A ring are pictured in the upper right.
Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 13, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Janus. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
In their orbital ballet, Janus and Epimetheus swap positions every four years -- one moon moving closer to Saturn, the other moving farther away. The two recently changed positions (the swap occurring on January 21, 2006), and Janus will remain the innermost of the pair until 2010, when they will switch positions again.
Although the moons appear to be close in the image, they are not. Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across at right) is about 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) farther away from Cassini than Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across, at left) in this view. In fact, even when they are at their closest, tugging at each other and swapping orbital positions, they are never closer than about 15,000 kilometers (9,000 miles).
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 20, 2006 at a distance of approximately 452,000 kilometers (281,000 miles) from Epimetheus and 492,000 kilometers (306,000 miles) from Janus. The image scale is 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel on both moons.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
From beneath the ring plane, the small, irregularly shaped moon Janus (181 kilometers, or 112 miles, across) can be seen following the orbital path it shares with slightly smaller Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles, across).
The image was taken in visible red light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Nov. 18, 2004, at a distance of approximately 4.7 million kilometers (2.9 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 27 kilometers (17 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.