Hubble image archive

Hubble Sees Moons Racing Across Saturn

Date: Jan 1, 2007
Mission: Hubble Space Telescope
Archive ID: hubblesite-images-2007-13-2079-image

By Kakha Giorgashvili January 1, 2007

This movie still captures the moons Mimas, Enceladus, and Dione as they begin their race across Saturn's disk. The still is from a movie created from images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. It reveals the planet's rings tilted nearly edge-on toward the Sun, an event that occurs once every 15 years. Because of this special alignment, the moons cast shadows on the planet and its rings. Dione is on the far left of the image, Mimas is in the middle, and Enceladus is on the right. Dione and Enceladus are casting long shadows on the rings. The "thumbnail" images on the left are frames from the movie that show the moons transiting the planet.

The images were taken Nov. 17, 1995 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, in blue, green, and red filters.

Credits

NASA, ESA, and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona)

Image Details

About The Object
Object Name	Saturn with moons
Object Description	Planet, moons
Distance	The semi-major axis of Saturn's orbit about the sun is 9.5 Astronomical Units (A.U.) or roughly 1.4 billion km.
Dimensions	The planet (without rings) has a diameter of roughly 75,000 miles (120,000 km) at the equator.
About The Data
Data Description	The Hubble images and videos were created from HST data from proposal : M. Tomasko and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona); and proposal 9354: E. Karkoschka and M. Tomasko (University of Arizona).
Instrument	HST>WFPC2
Exposure Dates	November 17, 1995
Filters	F336W, F410M, F467M, F588N, FQCH4N-B, and F673N