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Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Dione's Erulus Crater


The Cassini spacecraft snapped this shot of cratered Dione as it flew by the Saturnian moon on October 17, 2010.

The large crater at the center of the image is Erulus, which is about 120 kilometers, or 75 miles, across. This view looks toward the southern latitudes of the leading hemisphere of Dione (1,123 kilometers, or 698 miles across).

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 41,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 53 degrees. Image scale is 240 meters (787 feet) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

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