Dawn for Odysseus

The eastern rim of the large crater Odysseus is visible along the terminator in this image of Saturn's moon Tethys. This enormous impact feature is the largest on Tethys, at approximately 450 kilometers (280 miles) across. The shadowy rim of another smaller crater can be seen at the bottom. Tethys is 1,060 kilometers (659 miles) across.

This Cassini view shows principally the leading hemisphere of Tethys. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Dec. 18, 2004, at a distance of 1.7 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 94 degrees. The image scale is about 10 kilometers (6 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. For images visit the Cassini imaging team home page http://ciclops.org.