Dione Polar Maps – December 2011

Polar map of Dione
May 23, 2012
PIA NumberPIA14914
Language
  • english

This global map of Saturn's moon Dione was created using images taken during flybys by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

An extensive system of bright ice cliffs created by tectonic fractures adorns the moon's trailing hemisphere, which is centered on 270 degrees west.

The map is a simple cylindrical (equidistant) projection and has a scale of 502 feet (153 meters) per pixel at the equator. The resolution of the map is 64 pixels per degree. The mean radius of Dione used for projection of this map is 350 miles (563 kilometers).

This map is an update to the version released in October 2010 (see Map of Dione - October 2010). This new map contains data from Cassini's Dec. 12, 2011, flyby of Dione. Improved coverage is in the area around 45 degrees north latitude, 210 degrees west longitude.

Like other recent Dione global maps, this map has been shifted west by 0.6 degrees of longitude, compared to the 2006 version of the map (Map of Dione - December 2006), in order to conform to the International Astronomical Union longitude system convention for Dione.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute