Saturn's second-largest moon Rhea in front of the planet

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Here's a picture from Cassini released yesterday of Rhea in front of the planet, seen just below the rings:


The Cassini spacecraft looks toward Rhea's cratered, icy landscape with the dark line of Saturn's ringplane and the planet's murky atmosphere as a background.

Rhea is Saturn's second-largest moon, at 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from less than a degree above the ringplane.


Note though that second-largest isn't saying all that much; just like how almost the mass of the entire Solar System is taken up by the Sun alone, Titan also represents a total of 96% of the mass of the moons around Saturn, with the rest of them together making up the last 4%. But then again, a diameter of 1500+ km is nothing to sneeze at.

Here's Rhea compared to the Earth and the Moon:

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