A Bird's Eye View of Saturn and its Neighbors

A false-color view of Saturn's Moon Rhea, offering a view of hemispheric color differences. You're looking at an image that shows the side of the moon which always faces the planet. NASA scientists believe that the slightly reddish false-color hues near Rhea's poles suggest subtle composition changes which might be caused by differences in the surface exposure to meteoric debris falling into the moon or implantation of ions.

Details of the cratered surface of Saturn's moon Rhea, Look at the bottom right of the center of the image and you can make out a bright area which astronomers believe indicates a freshly excavated double crater. These occur after two gravitationally linked asteroids crash into a surface.

Another close-up of the moon Rhea.

Shadows cover Saturn in this Cassini spacecraft view. Also, the moon Rhea is shown orbiting between the planet and the spacecraft and appears above the rings on the left of the image.

On the top right of this image, Saturn's moon Dione may appear closer because it is larger than the moon Enceladus in the lower left. Interestingly, Enceladus was closer to the Cassini spacecraft when this image was taken.

A couple of views of Tethys, one of Saturn's moons. The the high-resolution color (left) and the topography (right) reveal an ice-rich satellite. The image's reddish tones may be connected to dust-sized particles ejected by Enceladus' south polar plumes. The prominent bluish band along the equator was caused by the bombardment and alteration of the surface by high energy electrons traveling slower than the satellite's revolution period.

An old, cratered surface on Saturn's moon Rhea with a low sun angle, casting deep shadows on the crater floors.

Judging from the presence of so many craters on Saturn's moon, astronomers believe that Rhea may have had some activity early in its geological history, but never developed the full-blown activity seen on other moons in the Saturn system

You can make out Saturn's rings as well as three of its moons in this image. The moon Dione appears just above Rhea. The moon Tethys is the larger circle toward the upper left, and the moon Epimetheus is the smaller dot to the left of Rhea. Prometheus is to the left of Dione, but appears as a speck embedded in the rings.

A view of the southern region of Saturn's tumbling moon Hyperion.

The southern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Rhea.