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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Cassini to Go Through Saturn Moon Plumes


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March 12, 2008—This map of Saturn's moon Enceladus shows the areas for which the international Cassini spacecraft is collecting detailed images during its flyby today.

Colored lines on the map enclose the areas that will be covered at different imaging scales, as indicated in the key.

Today's flyby will be the closest yet, with Cassini only about 30 miles (50 kilometers) above Enceladus's surface.

Today's carefully orchestrated event will take Cassini "deeper than we've been before," mission scientist Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute told the Associated Press in an e-mail.

Image courtesy the Space Science Institute/JPL/NASA