Saturn's Full Moon: Rhea Shines Bright for Cassini
This newly-released observation of Saturn’s second largest moon could be mistaken for our own moon hanging in the night sky. Although it may lack the tell-tail Mare Imbrium (Sea of Showers) or famous Tycho Crater, the rocky surface of Rhea is still pockmarked with craters that etch its ancient surface with solar system history. The Saturn-facing hemisphere is almost totally bathed in sunlight.
Rhea is 949 miles (1,527 kilometers) wide, less than half the size of our moon, which measures 2,159 miles (3,475 kilometers) wide. Snapped by Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on Sept. 10, 2013, the Saturn-orbiting spacecraft was approximately 990,000 miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Rhea.(Mar 10, 2014 12:18 PM ET // by Ian O'Neill)
