NEW YORK: Saturn’s moon Dione received a fleeting visitor this week, when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft whizzed by to image freaky streaks thought to be canyons with ice walls up to 100 stories tall.
Saturn looms in the background, with its moon Dione positioned perfectly for its host planet’s rings to make it into the shot. This was Cassini’s fourth targeted flyby of Dione and the spacecraft had a close approach altitude of 321 miles (516 kilometers) from Dione’s surface.
The raw images from Cassini’s encounter are flowing back to Earth, and they reveal wispy bands of bright material stretching hundreds of miles across Dione.
Neither of these passes, however, are as close as one made by Cassini back in 2011.
Washington, DC-(ENEWSPF)-June 19, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) from Dione and at a sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 128 degrees.
This is the penultimate flyby of Dione before Cassini’s mission enters its final stage.
