Monday, February 1, 2010

Cassini snaps Prometheus

Prometheus is one of Saturn's innermost moons.

Looking for all intents and purposes like a celestial egg after a session in Saturn's skillet, Prometheus displayed its pockmarked, irregular surface for NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 27, 2010.

It orbits the gas-giant at a distance of 139,353 kilometers (85,590 miles) and is 86 kilometers (53 miles) across at its widest point.

The porous, icy-bodied world was originally discovered by images taken by Voyager 1 back in 1980.

You could say this latest "egg-cellent" view has the Cassini science team licking their chops at the thought of future Prometheus images.

This raw, unprocessed image of Prometheus [pro-MEE-thee-us] , taken in visible light, was obtained by Cassini's narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 36,000 kilometers (23,000 miles).

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