With just a bit of detail visible on its lit hemisphere, Tethys was imaged by Cassini on July 20, 2004. A round feature, likely a large crater, can be seen near the boundary where day and night meet, at the bottom of the image. Dark markings are visible near the top.
The image was taken in visible light, with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera from a distance of 6.1 million kilometers (3.8 million miles) from Tethys, and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase angle of 92 degrees. The image scale is 37 kilometers (23 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of four 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 Cassini-Huygens 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 .
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
