Contact: Preston Dyches
preston@ciclops.org
720-974-5859
Space Science Institute

Dim Duo

Caption: This close pairing of Janus and Epimetheus shows the two moons at “high phase,” meaning that only a thin sliver of sunlit terrain is visible on each moon. Portions of each are also lit feebly by reflected light from Saturn.

Here, Janus (181 kilometers, 113 miles across) is at top and Epimetheus (116 kilometers, 72 miles across) is below.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 25, 2005, at a distance of approximately 479,000 kilometers (298,000 miles) from Janus and 455,000 kilometers (283,000 miles) from Epimetheus. The image scale is about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel on both moons.

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 imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Credit: Cassini Imaging Team

Usage Restrictions: Image is in the public domain. Appropriate credit is requested.