Stunning image of Saturn’s moon Tethys - Ices and shadows!

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Washington: NASA released a new stunning image of one of Saturn's moons - Tethys - captured by the Cassini spacecraft.

In the image, Tethys appears to float between two sets of rings, but NASA says it's just a trick of geometry. The rings, which are seen nearly edge-on, are the dark bands above the moon, while their curving shadows paint the planet at the bottom of the image.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on November 23, 2015, at a distance of 40,000 miles (65,000 kilometers) from Tethys.

Tethys orbits Saturn at a distance of about 295000 km from the center of the planet. Tethys has a low density of 0.98 g/cm3, the lowest of all the major moons in the Solar System, indicating that it is made of water ice with just a small fraction of rock.

Cassini has been studying Saturn and its moons since it arrived at the ringed planet in 2004.

(Source: NASA)