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New Photos of Saturn’s Moon Rhea

Rhea

After a couple of years in high-inclination orbits that limited its ability to encounter Saturn’s moons, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft returned to Saturn’s equatorial plane in March 2015. As a prelude to its return to the realm of the icy satellites, the spacecraft had its first relatively close flyby of an icy moon (apart from Titan) in almost two years on Feb. 9. During this encounter Cassini’s cameras captured images of the icy moon Rhea, as shown in these in two image mosaics. The views were taken about an hour and a half apart as Cassini drew closer to Rhea. Images … Read more

First Color Image of Pluto and Its Moon

Pluto and Moon

Someone’s using too many instagram filters… NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is setting up to make an historic fly-by of Pluto on July 14. NASA today released this first-ever color photo from the probe of Pluto with its largest moon Charon. Writes NASA: This image of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken by the Ralph color imager aboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on April 9 and downlinked to Earth the following day. It is the first color image ever made of the Pluto system by a spacecraft on approach. The image is a preliminary reconstruction, which will be refined … Read more