Truely Breathtaking – Saturn’s moon Dione

Saturn’s moon Dione hangs in front of Saturn’s rings in this view taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during the inbound leg of its last close flyby of the icy moon. North on Dione is up. The image was acquired in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 17 August 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 98,000 miles (158,000 kilometres) from Dione and at a sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 35 degrees. Image scale is 3,100 feet (950 metres) per pixel. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

This spectacular image of Dione and Saturn’s rings is simply fantastic.  Dione is a small moon with a diameter of 1,120 km, surface gravity of 0.232 m/S2 and semi-major axis similar to that of Earth’s moon.  Its orbital period is only 2.7 days however, 10% of our moon, reflecting the Saturn’s greater mass (95 times that of Earth).