* Astronomy

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RE: Tethys

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Thaca Chasma

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RE: Tethys

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This close-up of Tethys shows the large crater Penelope lying near centre, overprinted by many smaller, younger impact sites.
Three smaller impact features of roughly similar size make a line left of Penelope that runs north-south: (from bottom) Ajax, Polyphemus and Phemius.

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Features on Tethys are named for characters and places from "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." The largest impact structure on Tethys is named Odysseus.
The view is toward the Saturn-facing hemisphere on Tethys.
North is up.
The image was taken in polarised ultraviolet light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 25, 2006 at a distance of approximately 165,000 kilometres from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 23 degrees.
Image scale is 984 meters per pixel.

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This image of Tethys was taken by the Cassini spaceprobe on February 25, 2006, when it was approximately 152,812 kilometres away.

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The image was taken using the UV1 and CL2 filters.

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Plunging cliffs and towering mountains characterise the gigantic impact structure called Odysseus on Saturn's moon Tethys. The great impact basin lies before the Cassini spacecraft in one of the best views yet obtained.

Quite a few small craters are visible inside Odysseus (450 kilometres across), making it clear that this is not a very young structure. However, a comparison of cratering density between the interior of Odysseus and the surrounding terrain should show whether the large basin is at least relatively young.
Odysseus is on the leading hemisphere of Tethys. North is up and rotated 18 degrees to the right.

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The image was taken in polarised ultraviolet light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on December 24, 2005 at a distance of approximately 196,000 kilometres from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 85 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 1 kilometre per pixel.
The image has been magnified by a factor of two and contrast-enhanced to aid visibility.

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A crescent Tethys shows off its great scar, Ithaca Chasma, for which the moon is renowned. The chasm is 100 kilometres across on average, and is 4 kilometres deep in places.
Ithaca Chasma is the most prominent sign of ancient geologic activity on Tethys at 1,071 kilometres across), whose surface is characterized principally by heavy cratering.
The lit surface visible here is on the moon's Saturn-facing hemisphere. North on Tethys is straight up.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 28, 2005 using a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centred at 930 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometres from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 123 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 6 kilometres per pixel.
The image has been magnified by a factor of two and contrast-enhanced to aid visibility.

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This image was taken on December 25, 2005 by the Cassini spacecraft. Tethys was approximately 312,605 kilometres away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters.

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This global digital map of Saturn's moon Tethys was created using data taken during Cassini and Voyager spacecraft flybys. The map is an equidistant projection and has a scale of 293 meters per pixel.

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The mean radius of Tethys used for projection of this map is 536 kilometres. The resolution of the map is 32 pixels per degree.

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This view is among the closest Cassini images of Tethys' icy surface taken during the Sept. 24, 2005 flyby.
This false-colour image, created with infrared, green and ultraviolet frames, reveals a wide variety of surface colours across this terrain. The presence of this variety at such small scales may indicate a mixture of different surface materials.
Tethys was previously known to have colour differences on its surface, especially on its trailing side, but this kind of colour diversity is new to imaging scientists.

This view is centred on terrain at approximately 4.2 degrees south latitude and 357 degrees west longitude on Tethys. The view has been rotated so that north on Tethys is up.
The images for this view were obtained using the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at distances ranging from approximately 18,400 to 19,000 kilometres from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 17 degrees.
Image scale is 213 meters per pixel.