Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

May 12, 1996
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Tracking Saturn's Moons
Credit: P. Nicholson (Cornell) and NASA

Explanation: These five pairs of Hubble Space Telescope images track some of Saturn's moons as they orbit the ringed planet. A pair of images was taken every 97 minutes on November 21, 1995 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2, the normally bright ring system appearing nearly edge-on. In the top pair, the large bright moon Dione hangs above center while the smaller moons Pandora, Prometheus, and Mimas (top right image) appear near the planet's disk close to the outer ring. By the second and third pair of images, moons Rhea and Epimetheus have joined the dance. During the Saturn ring plane crossings, the reduction in light from the edge-on rings provided an opportunity for astronomer's to explore Saturn's complex moon system and search for elusive undiscovered satellites.

Tomorrow's picture: Hubble's Constant and The Expanding Universe (I)


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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (GMU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA).
NASA Technical Rep.: Sherri Calvo. Specific rights apply.
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