These new images reveal light and dark contrasts worthy of chiaroscuro painters like Caravaggio. The flyby on August 13 targeted the geyser moon Enceladus, but also brought Cassini close to two other moons — Tethys and Dione. The raw images include the best ones to date of Penelope crater on the icy moon Tethys. Penelope crater, which is 150 kilometers (90 miles) wide, is the second-largest crater on Tethys.
This image was taken on August 13, 2010, and received on Earth August 15, 2010. The camera was pointing toward ENCELADUS at approximately 2,673 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters. Images of the moon Dione highlight the moon’s battered surface.
Cassini was also able to obtain a portrait of Enceladus over the bright arc of Saturn’s atmosphere and a moody still life of one of the “tiger stripe” fissures at the Enceladus south polar region on the cusp of darkness. This particular “tiger stripe” — which is the nickname for the fissures spewing water vapor and organic particles out into space — is called Damascus Sulcus. It was also the subject of a heat scan by Cassini’s composite infrared spectrometer. Scientists are still analyzing the results.