Wednesday, January 15, 2014

A Distant View of Janus, One of Saturn’s ‘Dancing Moons’

A Distant View of Janus, One of Saturn’s ‘Dancing Moons’:
Cassini narrow-angle camera image of Janus from Sept. 10, 2013 (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
A Distant View of Janus, One of Saturn’s ‘Dancing Moons’
Cassini narrow-angle camera image of Janus from Sept. 10, 2013 (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
One of 62 moons discovered thus far orbiting giant Saturn, Janus is a 111-mile (179-km) -wide pockmarked potato composed of rock and ice rubble. The image above shows Janus as seen with Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on September 10, 2013, from a distance of 621,000 miles (1 million km), floating against the blackness of space.
Despite its apparent isolation in the image above, though, Janus isn’t alone. It shares its orbit around Saturn with its slightly smaller sister moon Epimetheus, and they regularly catch up to each other — and even switch places.
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Read the rest of A Distant View of Janus, One of Saturn’s ‘Dancing Moons’ (222 words)

© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2014. |
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