The mighty planet Saturn is circled by a fleet of moons, each as different from the other as individual people. And as weird and alien as it seems, this Saturnian system of planet and moons have some similarities to our own Earth and Moon. For example, as they orbit Saturn, the moons can be eclipsed by it when they pass behind the planet and into its shadow. The Cassini spacecraft caught exactly this event as the icy moon Enceladus slipped into Saturn's shadow last October... and there's more here than might initially meet the eye:
That's amazing [click to penumbrenate]. But it may not be obvious what you're seeing at first! Enceladus is the moon to the upper left. It's about 500 kilometers (330 miles) across, and its surface is almost entirely water ice. At the time this shot was taken, it was about 26,000 km (16,000 miles) from Cassini. ...
