Cassini spacecraft captures Saturnian Moon ballet

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) published a series of images of Saturnian moons on Wednesday, showing the ringed planet's moons in motion.

These images, acquired over the past six months, were being released Wednesday by NASA. Saturn's moons Janus and Epimetheus were captured swinging around Saturn's rings and past Dione in one image.

NASA said that pictures capturing several moons in one frame were strikingly beautiful, especially when deliberately imaged in red, green and blue spectral filters, which allow scientists to create a color photo.

One recent color image showed two of Saturn's most fascinating moons, icy-white Enceladus and orange, haze-enshrouded Titan. In a silent orbital ballet, Saturn's crater-covered moon Rhea slips between the moons Mimas and Enceladus.

In addition to their drama and visual interest, scientists used these images to refine their understanding of the orbits of Saturn's moons. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, used the same images, and the orbital positions of the moons, to help them navigate Cassini.

The spacecraft was nearing the halfway mark of its four-year tour of Saturn and its moons. The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

Source: Xinhua