SUMMARY: NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this natural colour image of Saturn's moon Rhea. It seems to display bright, wispy terrain, which looks like it's just been painted onto its surface - this is similar to another of Saturn's moons, Dione. Images were taken using Cassini's red, blue and green spectral filters, and then combined to create the natural colour version. They were taken on January 16, 2005, when Cassini was 496,500 kilometers (308,600 miles) from Rhea.

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could this be dust from the ring system?

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faith is for people who don't understand

Yes, it could. It could also be a spray of fresh ice from a recent impact, or a leftover from the initial formation of the moon [like Uranus' Miranda], or from a cryo-volcano, or things undreamt of. Hopefull we'll get a good enough look at it to know for sure later in the Cassini mission.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Also very interesting is the straight line at the bottom of the moon. It is a real feature that was also imaged decades ago in a previous flyby. Are there plans to get more close-ups of Rhea in the Cassini mission?

Cheers.

Very nice images of Rhea! There will be another flyby of Rhea later this year, on November 26th!

Cassini will be visiting Enceladus on 9th March - so we've only about a month till the next satellite flyby!

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