This map of the surface of Saturn's moon Tethys illustrates the regions
that will be imaged by Cassini during the spacecraft's close flyby of the
moon on Sept. 24, 2005. At closest approach, the spacecraft is expected to
pass approximately 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) above the moon's surface.
Tethys is 1,071 kilometers (665 miles) across.
The colored lines delineate the regions that will be imaged at differing
resolutions, listed in the legend at bottom.
The new high-resolution coverage will reveal details on the Saturn-facing
hemisphere of Tethys, including parts of the giant Ithaca Chasma canyon
system. Imaging scientists also are hoping to obtain images of an ancient
ridge east of Ithaca Chasma, as well as a section of terrain just west of
the giant rift that appeared to be unusually smooth in NASA Voyager images.
This flyby is also focused on gathering high-resolution imaging data of
the moon's southern polar region.
The map was made from images obtained by both the Cassini and Voyager
spacecraft.
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 operations center is based at the Space
Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org.
