vendredi 19 juin 2015

Cassini Sends Back Views After Zooming Past Dione












NASA - Cassini Mission to Saturn patch.


June 19, 2015

Dione's Craggy Surface

Image above: NASA's Cassini imaging scientists processed this view of Saturn's moon Dione, taken during a close flyby on June 16, 2015. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

The rugged landscape of Saturn's fracture-faced moon Dione is revealed in images sent back by NASA's Cassini spacecraft from its latest flyby. Cassini buzzed past Dione on June 16, coming within 321 miles (516 kilometers) of the moon's surface.

Raw, unprocessed images from the flyby are available via the Cassini mission website at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw

A selection of some of the images is also available from the Cassini imaging team's website at: http://www.ciclops.org/view_event/212/DIONE-REV-217-RAW-PREVIEW

On Aug. 17, the spacecraft will make its final flyby of Dione, diving to within 295 miles (474 kilometers) of the surface. The final Dione encounter will be Cassini's second-closest brush with the icy moon. A December 2011 flyby saw the spacecraft reach an altitude of just 60 miles (100 kilometers) above Dione.

In the Company of Dione

Image above: NASA's Cassini imaging scientists processed this view of Saturn's moon Dione, taken during a close flyby on June 16, 2015. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The Cassini imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information about Cassini, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JPL/Elizabeth Landau / Preston Dyches.

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