Epimetheus in the Way

As the Cassini spacecraft studies the rings, an icy interloper happens past. At the top of the image, between the spacecraft and the rings, is Epimetheus.

The darker region extending from center right is within the C ring. Surrounding it are the B ring, Cassini Division and A ring.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 2 degrees below the ringplane. Epimetheus is 116 kilometers (72 miles) across.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 17, 2008. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (707,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is about 6 kilometers (4 miles) 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 http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute