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Two Saturn Moons Form Perfect Line, As Seen By Cassini Spacecraft (PHOTO)
Two Saturn Moons Form Perfect Line, As Seen By Cassini Spacecraft (PHOTO)
Dec 25, 2024 2:31 AM

This image captured aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows Saturn moons Enceladus and Tethys in perfect alignment.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

It's like a lunar eclipse, only better, because this has never been seen by humans before.

The Cassini spacecraft, which has been studying Saturn from the planet's orbit, got a stunning view of two moons perfectly aligned on Sept. 24. Using its narrow-angle camera, the spacecraft captured an image of Enceladus and Tethys lined up just right from afar.

"At relatively similar distances from Cassini, the apparent sizes in this image of the relative sizes of Enceladus (313 miles or 504 kilometers across) and Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across)," NASA said.

(MORE: )

When the image was captured, Cassini was about 1.3 million miles from Enceladus and some 1.6 million miles from Tethys, NASA added. The Cassini mission is a project on which NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency have worked together to study Saturn and its moons since the ship arrived at the planet in 2004.

A separate NASA report said Cassini on Saturday, but the spacecraft's mission to study Saturn won't end until September 2017.

So far, 62 moons have been discovered orbiting Saturn, , according to the Cassini mission's website.

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