Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Mutual event of Janus and Epimetheus

Mutual event of Janus and Epimetheus
Mutual event of Janus and Epimetheus On 29 November 2005, Cassini caught a "mutual event" of Janus and Epimetheus from a distance of about a million kilometers (600,000 miles). Most of the specks in the image are cosmic ray hits on the camera detector, but a few that appear to move from frame to frame are background stars. The faint double band of light below the two moons is the G ring, seen nearly edge-on. The moons are observed from their night sides; they are illuminated from the lower right by the Sun into thin crescents, and their night sides are faintly lit by reflected light from Saturn. NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Emily Lakdawalla