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The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
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Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
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Science & Exploration
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
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Making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Mimas by Saturnshine
Although we are used to seeing Saturn’s moons lit directly by the Sun, sometimes we can catch them illuminated by 'Saturnshine'. Here, we see Mimas (upper right) lit by light reflected off of Saturn.
With each reflection, the intesity of the illumination is decreased significantly. To better illustrate the effect of Saturnshine, in this image Mimas (396 kilometres across), has had its brightness enhanced by a factor of 2.5 relative to the rings.
This view looks toward the trailing hemisphere of Mimas. North on Mimas is up and rotated 8 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 16 February 2015.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 2.5 million kilometres from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 148 degrees. Image scale is 15 kilometres per pixel.
The Cassini Solstice Mission is a joint United States and European endeavor. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
