'NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft': Captured Closest Image Of Saturn's Moon Pandora

Originally, Pandora was called as S/1980 S26. In 1985 it was renamed as Pandora. Pandora orbits 88,048 miles (141,700 km) away from Saturn. It takes 15.1 hours to go around the planet beyond Saturn's thin F ring. Pandora, also known as Saturn XVII, its shows 52 -mile -wide moon and 84 Kilometers across the orbits just outside the Saturn's F ring shepherd moon. It was first discovered in 1980 from images taken by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft.

According to ESA (European Space Agency) and ISA (Italian Space Agency), the image was taken in green light using Cassini's spacecraft Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS), narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 25,200 miles (40,500 kilometers) from Pandora, at a scale of 787 feet (240 meters) per pixel.

The Cassini spacecraft captured a highest-resolution image during it's closest-ever flyby of Pandora on 18 December 2016, during the third of its grazing passes by the outer edges of Saturn's main rings. Previously Cassini's captured a false colour view of Pandora Cassini created from infrared, green and ultraviolet images taken on 5^th September 2005 and achieved a resolution of 300 meters (1,000 feet) per pixel.

Someday ago, NASA revealed another spectacular image from the Cassini data, which shows Saturn's moon Mimas crashing through its rings. In the image, Mimas is actually 28,000 miles (45,000 kilometers) away from the rings. But, it was just an optical illusion. The gravitational pull of Mimas is 246 miles or 396 kilometers across to create waves in Saturn's rings that are visible in some Cassini images. So, Mimas' gravity also helps to create the Cassini Division, which separates the A and B rings.

NASA also says that, there is a strong connection between icy moon and Saturn's rings, because 'Gravity links them together and both move with same shapes'. The Cassini imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.