Prometheus' Two-Step
Date: 16 Apr 2009

Saturn's moon Prometheus continues its dance with the planet's F ring, creating channels in the ring and streamers of extracted ring material as a result.


This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 54 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 16 April 2009. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.3 million km (808,000 miles) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 99 degrees. Image scale is 8 km (5 miles) per pixel.


The potato-shaped Prometheus is overexposed in this image. Bright points of light in the image are stars.


Last Update: 20 Jun 2011 (AMB)

Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI