A Solar System Photo Gallery

A Solar System Photo Gallery
Saturn and Its Satellites

	Saturn is seen here in a mosaic of images taken by Cassini on 6 October 2004 from 6,300,000 km away. Saturn's cloud tops are visible, showing a less turbulent and more hazy atmosphere than that of Jupiter. Saturn has a core of ice and rock, surrounded by liquid hydrogen and a thick atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium. Saturn's dramatic ring system, partly visible here, is made up of billions of particles of ice, each individually orbiting Saturn in the same plane as Saturn's equator. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Pan is shown in a Cassini image taken 30 June 2006 from 289,300 km away, with Saturn's rings also visible. Pan is 26 km across and orbits in the 325-km wide Encke Gap in Saturn's A ring. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI)
	Daphnis is shown here in a Cassini image taken 9 September 2006 from 422,000 km away. Daphnis is only 7 km across and orbits within the narrow Keeler Gap in Saturn's A ring. In this view also showing the A ring to either side of the Keeler Gap, the orbital motion of ring material both inward of Daphnis (bottom) and outward of Daphnis (top) is visibly disturbed by the moonlet's gravity as they pass. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI)
	Atlas is shown in a color image from Cassini taken 12 June 2007 from 180,062 km away. Atlas is 35 km across and is the outer shepherd satellite of Saturn's A ring. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI)
	Prometheus is shown here in an image taken by Cassini on 26 December 2009 from 59,000 km away. Prometheus is the inner shepherd satellite of Saturn's F ring and is about 150 km by 70 km. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI)
	Pandora is seen here in an image from Cassini taken 5 September 2005 at a distance of 40,000 km. Pandora is the outer shepherd satellite of Saturn's F ring and is about 110 km long. (Credit: NASA, JPL)
	Epimetheus is seen here in a Cassini image taken 3 December 2007 from 37,400 km away. Epimetheus is 116 km across and co-orbits with Janus; the two moons orbit Saturn at slightly different distances, approaching each other and exchanging orbits once every 4 years. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Janus is shown in a Cassini image taken 26 July 2009 from 98,000 km away. Janus is 180 km across and co-orbits with Epimetheus, as described above. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Mimas is seen here in an image taken by Cassini 13 February 2010 from 71,500 km away. Mimas is 390 km in diameter and is mostly composed of ice. The large crater on the right is Hershel. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Methone is seen here in an image taken by Cassini 20 May 2012 from 4,000 km away. Methone's unusual smoothness for an object this small--3 km across--may indicate that it is a "dust ball". (Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SSI)
	Enceladus is seen here in a mosaic of images from Cassini taken on 5 October 2008 from 30,000-48,000 km away. Enceladus is 500 km in diameter and is made mostly of ice. This image shows areas where geologic activity has obliterated craters. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Tethys is shown here in a Voyager 2 image taken 26 August 1981 from 282,600 km away. Tethys is 1,060 km in diameter. Ithaca Chasma is a large canyon running diagonally in the left of this image; Ithaca Chasma is up to 100 km wide, several km deep, and stretches at least three-fourths of the distance around Tethys. (Credit: NASA, JPL)
	Telesto is shown here in a Cassini image taken on 11 October 2005 from 10,580 km away. Telesto is a Trojan satellite of Tethys, orbiting at the same distance from Saturn but 60 degrees ahead of Tethys. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI)
	Calypso is shown here in a Cassini image taken 13 February 2010 from 21,000 km away. Calypso, about 34 km long, is a Trojan satellite, orbiting Saturn at the same distance as Tethys but 60 degrees behind Tethys. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI)
	Dione is shown here in a composite of images from Cassini taken 1 August 2005 from 243,000 km away. Dione is 1,120 km in diameter and probably has a larger fraction of rock in its interior than the other icy satellites of Saturn. The bright streaks at the lower left are fissures in Dione's surface. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Helene is seen here in a Casssini image taken 3 March 2010 from several thousand km away. Helene is 30 km across and is a Trojan satellite, orbiting at the same distance from Saturn but 60 degrees ahead of Dione. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI)
	Polydeuces is seen here in a Cassini image from 73,000 km away taken 22 May 2006. Like Helene, Polydeuces is a Trojan satellite of Saturn coorbiting with Dione, but is only 3 km across. (Credit: NASA, JPL)
	Rhea is shown in this image from Cassini taken 16 January 2005 from 500,000 km away. Rhea is 1,520 km in diameter and is made of ice with a rocky core. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Titan is seen in this Cassini image taken 3 July 2004 from 789,000 km away. Titan is 5,150 km in diameter with a thick atmosphere of nitrogen, argon, and methane, with clouds and haze obscuring its surface. In certain wavelengths of light the surface is visible as light and dark areas, which may include oceans of ethane. The Huygens probe which landed on the surface of Titan in January 2004 showed sinuous river valley-like features. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Hyperion is shown here in a Cassini color image taken 26 September 2005 from 62,000 km away. Hyperion is very irregular in shape, particularly for a satellite of its size, 360 km long by 250 km wide. It is also tumbling chaotically as it orbits Saturn, unlike most larger satellites which keep the same face toward their primary planet. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, Gordan Ugarkovic)
	Iapetus is shown here in an image taken by Cassini (colorized based on another Cassini image) on 31 December 2004 from 172,400 km away. Iapetus is 1,440 km in diameter and is mostly ice. This image shows the boundary between its bright icy surface and the dark leading hemisphere. A wall of mountains is also visible, roughly tracing its equator. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)
	Phoebe is seen here in a Cassini image taken 13 June 2004 from somewhat over 2,100 km away. Phoebe is the outermost satellite of Saturn, is about 215 km across, and seems to resemble Centaurs and other icy outer solar system objects. (Credit: NASA, JPL, SSI, ESA)