Small and asteroid-like in appearance, Epimetheus is seen here with
Saturn's nearly edge-on rings in the distance. Epimetheus has a mean
density that is less than that of water, suggesting that it might be
somewhat porous. Epimetheus is 116 kilometers (72 miles) across.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft
narrow-angle camera on March 12, 2005, at a distance of approximately
1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn and at a
Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 90 degrees. Resolution in the
original image was 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The image has been
contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages
the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The
Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science
Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page,
http://ciclops.org.
