Cassini Views Pandora Appearing to Hover Over Titan

New Cassini Image Views Pandora and Titan

Saturn’s moons Pandora and Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

This Cassini image makes Pandora appear to be hovering over Titan, but a coincidence of viewing angle is responsible for this image.

Little Pandora is much closer to Cassini than hazy Titan in this view. (Titan is nearly three times farther away.) Even so, Titan (3,200 miles or 5,150 kilometers across) dwarfs Pandora (50 miles or 81 kilometers across). This gives us some sense of the diversity in sizes, and shapes, of Saturn’s many moons.

North on Titan is up and rotated 19 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 4, 2015.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) from Titan. Image scale is 7 miles (12 kilometers) per pixel on Titan. Pandora is at a distance of 436,000 miles (698,000 kilometers) away from the spacecraft. The scale on Pandora is about 3 miles (4 kilometers) per pixel.

 

1 Comment on "Cassini Views Pandora Appearing to Hover Over Titan"

  1. Madanagopal.V.C. | October 6, 2015 at 10:10 am | Reply

    Cassini rings of saturn , Titan and its tiny sister Pandora are greatly captured at a low angle from the spacecraft to show them in a frame and it is fantastic indeed. Thank YOu.

Leave a comment

Email address is optional. If provided, your email will not be published or shared.