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Emily Lakdawalla • Oct 12, 2005

Animation from Cassini's approach to Dione

The images from Cassini's Dione encounter yesterday have started coming back, and there is a really cool set of 16 pictures of Dione and Rhea. Cassini's cameras are kept locked on Dione, so if you stack them together and animate them like a flip book, Rhea appears to zip behind Dione. Pretty cool! There are three frames missing toward the end, which is why it appears to stop and start; when those images are returned I'll add them in to the animation.

Partial eclipse of Rhea by Dione
Partial eclipse of Rhea by Dione As Cassini zoomed toward its 11 October 2005 encounter with Dione, it caught Rhea traveling behind Dione in a 16-frame movie.Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / animation by Emily Lakdawalla

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