The “flying saucer” in this image is the small moon Atlas (30 kilometers, 19 miles across), whose shadowy profile reveals its flattened shape. This image looks down onto the outer A ring, and through the Encke and Keeler gaps. Two distinct, thin strands in the F ring are visible here, silhouetted against the planet. Saturn’s extended, high-altitude haze is seen near lower right. The image was taken in visible green light with the narrow angle camera on August 2, 2005, from a distance of approximately 489,000 kilometers (304,000 miles) from Atlas and at a Sun-Atlas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 138 degrees. The image scale is 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel.

PIA 07592 Avg Rating: 3/10

Full Size 880x879: JPEG 62 KB PNG 269 KB TIFF 775 KB