* Astronomy

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RE: Helene

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Cassini Captures Ice Queen Helene

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has successfully completed its second-closest encounter with Saturn's icy moon Helene, beaming down raw images of the small moon. At closest approach, on June 18, Cassini flew within 6,968 kilometres of Helene's surface. It was the second closest approach to Helene of the entire mission.
Cassini passed from Helene's night side to the moon's sunlit side. It also captured images of the Saturn-facing side of the moon in sunlight, a region that was only illuminated by sunlight reflected off Saturn the last time Cassini was close, in March 2010. This flyby will enable scientists to finish creating a global map of Helene, so they can better understand the history of impacts to the moon and gully-like features seen on previous flybys.
The closest Helene encounter of the mission took place on March 10, 2010, when Cassini flew within 1,820 kilometres of the moon.

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This image of Helene was taken by the Cassini spaceprobe on the 3rd March, 2010.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The image was taken using the CL1 and GRN filters.

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This image of Helene was taken by the Cassini spaceprobe on the 3rd March, 2010.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters.

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This image of Helene was taken by the Cassini spaceprobe on the 3rd March, 2010.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

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Helene Quasi-targeted Flyby - March 3, 2010

Following a day after a targeted flyby of the moon Rhea, the Cassini spacecraft makes its closest approach of the mission to Helene at about 1,800 kilometres. The small moon is referred to as a trojan moon because it is gravitationally tied to the much larger moon Dione.
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This image of the small Trojan moon Helene, which leads the moon Dione by 60 degrees in a shared orbit, was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 24, 2008, when it was approximately 68,000 kilometres away, at a Sun-Helene-spacecraft angle of 30 degrees.

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Credit NASA/JPL

The image scale is 408 meters per pixel.

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This image of the Trojan moon Helene, was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 20, 2007, when it was approximately 39,000 kilometres away.

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Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Image scale is 231 meters per pixel.

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This image of Helene was taken by the Cassini spaceprobe on July 20, 2007, when it was approximately 38,246 kilometres away.

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Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The image was taken using the P0 and UV3 filters.

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This image of Helene was taken by the Cassini spaceprobe on July 20, 2007, when it was approximately 38,046 kilometres away.

Expand (10kb, 1024 x 768)
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The image was taken using the CL1 and IR3 filters.