Home | Site Map | What's New | Image Index | Copyright | Posters | ScienceViews | Science Fiction Timelines |

PHOTO INDEX OF
PRIMARY TARGETS
ASTEROIDS
COMETS
EARTH
JUPITER
KUIPER BELT
MARS
MERCURY
METEORITES
NEPTUNE
OORT CLOUD
PLUTO
SATURN
SOLAR SYSTEM
SPACE
SUN
URANUS
VENUS
ORDER PRINTS

OTHER PHOTO INDEXES
ALL TARGETS
PHOTO CATEGORIES

SCIENCEVIEWS
AMERICAN INDIAN
AMPHIBIANS
BIRDS
BUGS
FINE ART
FOSSILS
THE ISLANDS
HISTORICAL PHOTOS
MAMMALS
OTHER
PARKS
PLANTS
RELIGIOUS
REPTILES
SCIENCEVIEWS PRINTS

Tirawa at Twilight

Target Name:  Rhea
Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
Instrument:  Imaging Science Subsystem - Narrow Angle
Produced by:  NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Copyright: NASA Copyright Free Policy
Cross Reference:  PIA07575
Date Taken:  13 August 2005

Related Documents
Download Options

NameTypeWidth x HeightSize
PIA07575.jpgJPEG467 x 48016K
PIA07575.tifTIFF467 x 48040K

The giant Tirawa impact basin straddles the day and night boundary on Saturn's moon Rhea in this view from the Cassini spacecraft. The ancient basin is 5 kilometers (3 miles) deep in places, as measured in NASA Voyager images. The basin is 360 kilometers (220 miles) across.

The prominent bright splotch to the southeast of Tirawa is ejecta from a fairly fresh crater. This feature can be seen at much higher resolution in PIA06648. This view of Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) reveals terrain slightly to the east of a similar Cassini view, released earlier (see PIA07539). The sunlit surface in this view is principally on the leading hemisphere of Rhea. North is up and rotated 13 degrees to the left.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 13, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 50 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 12 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.

Copyright © 1995-2016 by Calvin J. Hamilton. All rights reserved.