Saturn quadruple transit

Filed under pretty pictures, global views, many worlds, amateur image processing, Saturn, Saturn's moons, Saturn's rings, Mimas, Enceladus, Dione, Titan, Hubble Space Telescope

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The Hubble Space Telescope caught four moons or their shadows crossing Saturn's disk in this image captured on February 24, 2009 at 14:22 UTC. Titan is the large, dark moon near the top; the other three moons are Enceladus (off the disk to the left), Dione (on the disk at left), and Mimas (at the edge of the disk at right).

NASA / STScI / Gordan Ugarkovic

The photo was taken just a few months before equinox, and the rings cast nearly no shadow onto the planet. Saturn's oblate shape is obvious in this very nearly full-phase view.

Copyright holder: Gordan Ugarkovic

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about February 24, 2009