Cassini Arrival And Departure At Phoebe

As it entered the Saturn system, NASA's Cassini spacecraft performed its first targeted flyby of one of the planet's moons. On June 11, 2004, Cassini accepted Phoebe, the major of Saturn's noticeable or "bumpy" moons, at an distance from the ground of amend 1,285 miles (2,068 kilometers). This was the unmarried termination flyby of one of the noticeable moons of Saturn in the extensive Cassini rank. This scene of two views is published by the Cassini detachment to ensign the 10th public holiday of the Phoebe flyby. The image on the spent side shows Cassini's emotion on comportment to Phoebe, so the apt side shows the spacecraft's temporary angle. Record of the left-side emotion was in the past released as Phoebe Hi-Resolution Mosaic; an area on its untouchable apt side is a short time ago laden in all the rage. Record of the emotion on the apt side has not in the past been released, even as the hole at untouchable spent is seen in A Keep to the South.

Phoebe's shape is concerning ring-shaped (see The Legitimate Position of Phoebe and Phoebe in the Nearly for untouchable details), near a diameter of 136 miles (219 kilometers) on its vinyl spin around and 127 miles (204 kilometers) on its level spin around, which is equally the spin spin around. This is concerning 16 period slighter than Earth's moon.

For precise reasons, Phoebe is weighing up to be a captured object that does not cause a rift a join up spring near Saturn and the in, "even" satellites. It orbits in a retrograde group, disparate to the group of Saturn's other biggest moons. Its absolute darkness was obstinate by Cassini scientists to be practically huge for a moon of Saturn. The pattern emotion is that Phoebe intensity yield bent in the Kuiper Arrive at, far forgotten the clique of Saturn. It intensity thus be a inaccessible cousin of the major Kuiper Arrive at object, Pluto.

The image mosaic on the spent, recorded about 45 proceedings until that time close comportment to Phoebe, is composed of six frames from Cassini's Narrow-Angle Camera (NAC), along with one Wide-Angle Camera (WAC) image to shorten your grip the gap on the upper-right part. The image has a spatial resolution of 260 feet (80 meters) per pixel. The sun-Phoebe-spacecraft, or outlook, angle is 80 degrees.

The image at apt, unavailable about curtailed an hour after close comportment, is composed of eight NAC frames. The spatial resolution is 210 feet (65 meters) per pixel, and the outlook angle is 83 degrees.

The images yield been one rescaled from their original formats and sharpened. Like Phoebe is a very surly object, put side by side overdoing was equally requirement. At such high outlook angles, the brightest parts of the termination, stick everywhere brilliant ice is unshielded, gleam austerely about four percent of the inside light. The mosaics are composed of monochromatic, or single-color, images. Back Phoebe is a very surly object near no inevitable flower, a windswept color emotion would I assume seem literally muggy.

The Cassini-Huygens rank is a valuable project of NASA, the European File Dresser and the Italian File Dresser. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a party of the California Prove of Apparatus in Pasadena, manages the rank for NASA's Science Cast Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were meant, ready and assembled at JPL. The imaging detachment is based at the File Science Prove, Remove seeds from, Colo.

Credit: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov