Astronomy Picture of the Day
    


Tracking Saturn's Moons
<< Yesterday 12.05.1996 Tomorrow >>
Tracking Saturn's Moons
Credit & Copyright: P. Nicholson (Cornell) and NASA
Explanation: These five pairs of Hubble Space Telescope images track some of Saturn's moons as they orbit the ringed planet. A pair of images was taken every 97 minutes on November 21, 1995 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2, the normally bright ring system appearing nearly edge-on. In the top pair, the large bright moon Dione hangs above center while the smaller moons Pandora, Prometheus, and Mimas (top right image) appear near the planet's disk close to the outer ring. By the second and third pair of images, moons Rhea and Epimetheus have joined the dance. During the Saturn ring plane crossings, the reduction in light from the edge-on rings provided an opportunity for astronomer's to explore Saturn's complex moon system and search for elusive undiscovered satellites.

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
 < May 1996  >
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su


12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day

Publications with keywords: Saturn
Publications with words: Saturn
See also:
All publications on this topic >>