Shadows darken parts of some of Janus’ large craters as Cassini takes a close look during its flyby of this Saturnian moon on March 27, 2012. See PIA10447and PIA12714 for higher resolution views of Janus (111 miles, or 179 kilometers across). See PIA08170 and PIA08348 to learn about how Janus periodically swaps orbits with Epimetheus.
This view is centered on terrain at 13 degrees south latitude, 26 degrees west longitude.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 28,000 miles (45,000 kilometers) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 109 degrees. Image scale is 892 feet (272 meters) per pixel. 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 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 operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit https://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute