Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been sending stunning images lately, of planet Saturn and its largest moon Enceladus, a recent one being a pic that captured Enceladus and Saturn's rings showing different characteristics, even though they are both made up of ice water.
This time, NASA has posted an image taken by Cassini that exhibits Saturn's two moons Enceladus and Tethys in all its glory. However, its not just any image.
For the first time, Enceladus and Tethys line up almost perfectly for Cassini's cameras, like a cosmic bulls-eye!
Since the two moons are not only aligned, but also at relatively similar distances from Cassini, the apparent sizes in this image are a good approximation of the relative sizes of Enceladus (313 miles or 504 kilometers across) and Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across).
Cassini probe has delivered some incredible images as it orbits around the ringed planet, Saturn, including a recent closest-ever pass over icy moon Enceladus.
The image was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) from Enceladus. Image scale on Enceladus is 7 miles (12 kilometers) per pixel. Tethys was at a distance of 1.6 million miles (2.6 million kilometers) with a pixel scale of 10 miles (16 kilometers) per pixel.
NASA's Cassini-Huygens is an unmanned spacecraft that was launched into space in 2004 to visit Saturn and the first to enter the orbit. This is the fourth Saturn space probe mission.
