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Saturn's 62 moons range from overgrown rocks that are less than a half-mile wide to giant Titan, which is bigger than the planet Mercury. These pictures from the Cassini orbiter show off two "quartets" of moons against the backdrop of Saturn's rings. But you have to look really, really close to see the smallest members of each group.
The first picture, taken on July 17 and released today, features Titan in the lower left corner and the icy moon Tethys toward the upper right. So where are the other moons in the foursome? Pandora, a 50-mile-wide "shepherd" moon that helps keep Saturn's F-ring in line, is on the very left edge of the image. Epimetheus, which is 70 miles across, is above the rings, near the middle left of the image. But they're mere specks in this picture, which was taken from a distance of 1.6 million miles. You'll have a better chance of seeing them in this enlarged view.
Epimetheus is easier to spot in the second Cassini image, which was taken on July 27 from a distance of 746,000 miles. It's on the far left. The other moons, moving from left to right, are Janus (111 miles across), Prometheus (53 miles across) and Atlas (19 miles across). Epimetheus and Janus make a matched set, because they share an orbit around Saturn but manage to stay out of each other's way. The odd couple's relationship is explained in this NASA video.
Check out this slideshow for more of Cassini's greatest hits. For more great images from Earth and beyond, explore our Photoblog. You can join the Cosmic Log corps by signing up as my Facebook friend or hooking up on Twitter with @b0yle. And if you really want to be friendly, ask me about "The Case for Pluto."
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Amazing, very interesting
I had always assumed that all of Saturns moons rotated in the same plane as the rings. Looking at the picture with Titan would tell me this isn't so. Would be nice to get see a graphic with the orbits.
Just did a little research on Titan and both it and the rings revolve more or less around the equator of Saturn. The apparent difference must result from the angle from which it was viewed. Regards....
Awesome!
Much too easy! Try "Where's Pluto" in 4 degrees through Sagittarius! http://www.astrokev.com/2010/05/17/fun-with-pluto/
You're kidding ,right? What was that other than an excuse for you to try to impress somebody? Sory,you failed miserably.LOSER.
Sprintcar, you might want to check your in your own backyard for simple spelling mistakes before you try to hurl insults at others. What a hound. ROFL!
BigRed JJJ; your reply contain a grammatcial error and should read ..."check in your own backyard". Thank you
Just awesome!!
Wish that more pictures of this nature would be allowed so that the general public could get some idea of what is out there!
This would make a great science site because this is a prime example of a single picture being worth a thousand words.
cool
My, Gods design is perfect!
Very beautiful but it ultimately makes me sad. I think back to the Apollo missions and can remember how I felt back then. In 1969 I was sure that there would be colonies of humans working and playing throughout the solar system by now. We have been stuck in low earth orbit since 1972. Expanding the range of human habitation seems worth 4% of the U.S. budget to me.
Saturnian nights.
MV...you do realize that the fantasy was soon tuned into the harsh reality about humans
in space. You should thank the Russians for making leaps and bounds in that department.
Now that the technology has pretty much caught up tp the dream, the facts remain about
what humans can and can't do in space...so we may as well get it right before losing more people
to spaceflight.
I'm an American. The only problem I see is complacency.