03 July 2007
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
NASA recently published a stunning image of Tethys, Saturn's icy moon, acquired by the Cassini spacecraft. It is an ultraviolet image of the Saturn-facing side of Tethys (1,070 km across), showing the moon's rugged, varied terrain.
Ithaca Chasma, a huge valley on Tethys, slashes from north to south, near center. The largest impact crater on Tethys, Odysseus (400 km across), is visible to the left, leading to the flattening of the moon's western limb.
The dark, east-west running band often observed in this region (see JPL's PIA07571) is only discernable here, but its contrast is reversed in ultraviolet; it is rather bright against the already bright terrain.
The image was taken with Cassini's narrow-angle camera on 27 May 2007, applying ultraviolet filters. The spacecraft was approximately 267,000 km from Tethys. Image scale is 2 km per pixel. North on Tethys is up and rotated 24° to the left.
Further Reading
Cassini-Huygens Mission
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm
Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem