Closing in on Phoebe

The Cassini spacecraft is closing in fast on its first target of observation in the Saturn system: the small, mysterious moon Phoebe, only 220 kilometers (137 miles) across. The three images shown here, the latest of which is twice as good as any image returned by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1981, were captured in the past week on approach to this outer moon of Saturn. Phoebe's surface is already showing a great deal of contrast, most likely indicative of topography, such as tall sunlit peaks and deep shadowy craters, as well as genuine variation in the reflectivity of its surface materials. Left to right, the three views were captured at a phase (Sun-Saturn-spacecraft) angle of 87 degrees between June 4 and June 7, from distances ranging from 4.1 million kilometers (2.6 million miles) to 2.5 million kilometers (1.5 million miles). The image scale ranges from 25 to 15 kilometers per pixel. Phoebe rotates once every nine hours and 16 minutes; each of these images shows a different region on Phoebe. Phoebe was the discovered in 1898. It has a very dark surface. Cassini's powerful cameras will provide the best-ever look at this moon on Friday, June 11, when the spacecraft will streak

Date

2004-06-09

Photographer / author

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Collection

JPL

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

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