Aeneas on the Edge

This Cassini image of Saturn's moon Dione shows a nice view of the crater Aeneas on the terminator. The crater's diameter is approximately 175 kilometers (109 miles). The crater's central peak is about 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) high, which is comparable to the depth of the crater. This is principally the side of Dione that faces Saturn. Dione is 1,118 kilometers (695 miles) across.

The bright features on the moon's eastern limb are part of the fracture system seen at higher resolution in Cassini's first close approach to Dione on Dec. 14, 2004 (see PIA06162).

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Dec. 10, 2004, at a distance of 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 46 degrees. The image scale is about 16 kilometers (10 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of two and contrast enhanced to aid visibility.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.