WASHINGTON: One of Saturn’s natural satellites is known to orbit the ringed planet seemingly appearing like a huge cratered spud.
Prometheus, famous as Saturn’s potato moon, is an inner satellite of the planet that was discovered by scientists more than 30 years ago.
During a Dec. 6 flyby, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft managed to capture another photo of Prometheus – one of the highest image resolutions of the potato moon ever taken.
Taken in visible light by Cassini’s narrow-angle camera, the new photo shows the pockmarked surface of Prometheus. The view looks towards the potato moon’s anti-Saturn side.
Cassini took the snapshot of Prometheus at a distance of about 23,000 miles or 37,000 kilometers and a Sun-Prometheus-spacecraft angle of 87 degrees. The potato moon roams around Saturn just interior to the narrow F ring, scientists said.
Aside from the new high resolution photo, Cassini had twice captured high-resolution images of the potato moon.
A high-resolution image of Prometheus was taken by Cassini in a Jan. 27, 2010 flyby
At that time, the encounter indicated the closest imaging sequence yet of the potato moon for Cassini. The view was taken at a distance of 21,000 miles or 34,000 kilometers and looked toward the trailing hemisphere of the moon.
