* Astronomy

The Cassini spacecraft captured this grouping of three moons --Dione, Tethys and Pandora-- near the rings, on Sept. 22, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometres from Saturn.


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Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

A 330-kilometer-wide impact basin can be seen near the bottom right on Dione (at left). Ithaca Chasma and the region imaged during the Cassini spacecraft's Sept. 24, 2005, flyby can be seen on Tethys (middle). Pandora makes a good showing here as well, displaying a hint of surface detail.
Tethys is on the far side of the rings in this view; Dione and Pandora are much nearer to the Cassini spacecraft.
Dione is 1,126 kilometres across. Tethys is 1,071 kilometres across and Pandora is 84 kilometres across.

This image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera The image scale is about 5 kilometres per pixel on Dione and Pandora and 9 kilometres per pixel on Tethys.