Prometheus Passing

Cassini passes close to Prometheus

Prometheus dips into the F ring

Prometheus, shepherd moon of Saturn’s F ring, is featured in this dramatic raw image from Cassini taken as it passed by at a distance of 23,000 miles on January 27th.

This is the closest yet Cassini has come to Prometheus.

View the official image release on the CICLOPS site here.

Image: NASA/JPL/SSI

ADDED: Here’s another view of Prometheus, this time I tried to clean up the artifacts in the raw file a bit. The full irregular shape of the moon can be seen here.

Another view of Prometheus

Prometheus is about 92 miles long and 42 miles wide.

More great images from the January 27th flyby of Prometheus – including one in color! – and also some of the recently discovered moon Aegaeon can be found on The Planetary Society’s blog here.

Image: NASA/JPL/SSI/J. Major