New Delhi:
NASA’a Cassini spacecraft has captured a stunning picture of Pan, the second-innermost or smallest moon of Saturn. It may be small in size, but one cannot overlook the image captured by Cassini. The Saturn’s moon Pan orbits within the Encke Gap in Saturn's A Ring. Considered as a ring shepherd, the Pan keeps the ring particles away from the Encke Gap.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is currently on its final leg of the Saturn probe. On July 2, 2016, it clicked a picture showing the Saturn’s moon holding the Encke gap. It could be seen shaping the ever-changing ringlets within the gap.
According to NASA, what you can see in the image is the view that looks towards the sunlit side of the rings from around 8 degrees above the ring plane.
The NASA Cassini spacecraft captured the view at a distance of approximately 840,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 128 degrees. The scale of the picture is 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel.
In order to enhance its visibility, the Pan has been brightened by a factor of two.
