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Odysseus is looking up!
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The vast expanse of the crater Odysseus spreads out below Cassini in this mosaic view of Saturn's moon Tethys.
The crater (about 450 Km or approx. 280 miles across) is a remarkably well-preserved example of an ancient multi-ringed impact basin: the outer ring is defined by steep, cliff-like walls that descend to generally broad internal terraces. The inner ring is formed by a prominent, crown-shaped, 140-Km (88-mile) diameter circular band of icy mountains. Multi-ring basins are seen on rocky bodies as well as icy ones.
The complex internal structure and multi-ringed nature of these very large basins are believed to arise from the rebound of intense shock waves that penetrated the body at the time of impact.
This mosaic was assembled from four clear filter, narrow-angle camera images. The view is an orthographic projection centered on 3° South Latitude, 119° West Longitude and has a resolution of 572 meters (0,35 mile) per pixel. An orthographic view is most like the view seen by a distant observer looking through a telescope. North is up.
The view was obtained by the Cassini spacecraft on Aug. 30, 2007, from a distance of approximately 97.000 Km (about 60.000 miles) and at a Sun-Tethys-Spacecraft, or phase, angle of 51°.
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(Dettagli)
