Saturn’s moon Tethys is one of the four inner moons orbiting the Ringed Giant along its E Ring. The cold, desolate moon is built from frozen water and gas with very little rock in its structure. But this NASA image, snapped during Cassini’s 13-year-long mission, shows even desolate alien landscapes can be beautiful. The NASA picture shows the illuminated silhouette of Tethys peaking through a gap in Saturn’s A Ring.
NASA said: “Like a drop of dew hanging on a leaf, Tethys appears to be stuck to Saturn’s A and F rings from this perspective in this 2014 image from the Cassini mission.
“For more than a decade, Cassini shared the wonders of Saturn and its family of icy moons – taking us to astounding worlds where methane rivers run to a methane sea and where jets of ice and gas are blasting material into space from a liquid water ocean that might harbour the ingredients for life.”
Tethys is the second-brightest of the inner moons right after the smaller moon Enceladus.
Saturn’s four inner moons are Mimas, Enceladus, Dione and Tethys.
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The icy bodies orbit Saturn alongside the E Ring where they are joined by three much smaller moons in the Alkyonides group.
Tethys measures approximately 660 miles (1,062km) across and is the third-largest of the four.
The moon was snapped by Cassini through a gap in the A Ring, which NASA said is “kept clear” by another small moon, Daphnis.
The space agency said: “This view looks toward the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Tethys. North on Tethys is up and rotated 43 degrees to the right.
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“The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 14, 2014.”
In total, NASA estimates Saturn boasts 53 of its own moons with another nine awaiting conformation.
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the solar system after Jupiter.
Thanks to its seven colourful rings, astronomers often refer to Saturn as the Jewel of the Solar System.
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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft explored the Ringed Giant for an incredible 13 years before taking a death dive into Saturn’s atmosphere in September 2017.
The spacecraft launched on October 15, 1997, from Cape Canaveral in Florida, US.
A total of 27 countries were involved in the spacecraft’s mission.
Cassini provided the scientific community with more than 450,000 detailed images of Saturn, its rings and its moons.