Saturn’s moons Janus and Mimas coast in their silent orbits beyond the rings. The ansa, or outer edge of the rings, is visible on the left. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
A newly released image of Saturn’s moons Janus and Mimas from the Cassini Spacecraft.
Saturn’s moons Janus and Mimas coast in their silent orbits beyond the rings in this view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The ansa, or outer edge of the rings, is visible on the left. Janus hangs above the center, while Mimas shines at right. Owing to its irregular shape, Janus’ terminator – that line which separates day from night – is jagged, while Mimas’ smooth terminator belies its round shape and larger size.
The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 598,000 miles (963,000 kilometers) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 86 degrees. The image scale at Janus is 3.6 miles (5.8 kilometers) per pixel. The distance to Mimas was 680,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) for an image scale of 4.1 miles (6.6 kilometers) per pixel.
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