Little Helene

Here’s one of the small moons of Saturn we don’t get to see too much of, named Helene. Helene is pretty small as moons go, only 20 miles across. Cassini did a pass at just a bit more than 1,300 miles and that is about as close as the spacecraft has come to the little [...]

Little Helene. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Here’s one of the small moons of Saturn we don’t get to see too much of, named Helene. Helene is pretty small as moons go, only 20 miles across. Cassini did a pass at just a bit more than 1,300 miles and that is about as close as the spacecraft has come to the little moon. The moon is a little off center, it’s not easy getting these shots sometimes. The moon appears very bright because it is bathed in reflected light from Saturn. There are other images, but they need to be processed by the Cassini team before they can be used, you can see them in the raw images section of the Cassini site (linked below), and you will understand what I am talking about. I included an image from 2007 which you can see by ...