Atlas in the Distance
The Cassini spacecraft looks past Saturn's main rings to spy the tiny moon Atlas, which orbits between the main rings and the thin F ring.
The main rings are closer to the spacecraft than Atlas is, and the moon appears as only a small, white dot in the center of the image. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.
See Atlas and the F Ring and Saturn's Saucer Moons for other views of Atlas (19 miles, 30 kilometers across).
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 16, 2012. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 870,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from Atlas. Image scale is 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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