A recent image of Saturn's moon, Pandora, clicked by Nasa, has taken the internet by storm. The spectacular photograph, where the satellite looks like a fresh potato, was released by the US space agency on Christmas Eve.
The image of the inner satellite of Saturn, which was discovered in 1980, was shot by the Cassini spacecraft on 18 December. The spacecraft was making its third ring grazing orbit of Saturn.
According to The Tecake, the picture of the 52 miles wide object was taken by a narrow-angle camera installed on the Cassini from a distance of approximately 25,200 miles (40,500 kilometers).
From our new Ring-Grazing orbit, we've captured some of the highest-resolution views ever of Saturn's moon Pandora https://t.co/UoG2LwYprC pic.twitter.com/DQXchDtcyy
— CassiniSaturn (@CassiniSaturn) December 21, 2016
This is not the first time that NASA has released incredible photographs of Saturn, which is considered as the most beautiful planet in the solar system. A picture of another satellite of Saturn called Daphnis was clicked on 12 August and it revealed two faints ringlets that were visible within the Encke Gap in lower left corner, reported the news website. The photo was captured from the sunlit side of the rings by a narrow-angle camera fitted in Cassini spacecraft.
#SaturnSaturday #ICYMI Watching the Wavemaker: Saturn's moon Daphnis raises waves in the rings https://t.co/b39UtKN7de pic.twitter.com/vq0B2FqZqs
— CassiniSaturn (@CassiniSaturn) December 17, 2016
Pandora, which is named after the first woman created by God fin Greek Mythology, is no doubt a unique celestial body. The porous icy satellite follows a haphazard orbit around Saturn which gets changed in every 6.2 years.
Other than Pandora and Daphnis, Saturn has 61 one satellites, out of which only 53 have formal names. WhileTitan is the largest among the moons, Rhea is considered the most spectacular of all. Some of the other famous moons of the second largest planet are Enceladus, Mimas, lapetus, Dione and Tethys.
In this view, Saturn's moon Mimas almost appears to crash through the rings, but is actually many miles from them https://t.co/04teliXlCJ pic.twitter.com/BJz793Hfvb
— CassiniSaturn (@CassiniSaturn) December 19, 2016