Tethys

Toward Tethys

Tethys and Calypso

Map of Tethys

Target: Tethys

Craters of Tethys

Eye of Tethys

Tethys Shadow

Tethys Aloft

The Tethys Atlas

Grim Tethys

Tethys in the Dark

Slice of Tethys

Texture of Tethys

History on Tethys

Tethys Magnified

Penelope on Tethys

Tethys Mysteries

The Triad of Tethys

Tethys in Eclipse

Distant Tethys

Tethys Crescent

The Crown of Tethys

Tethys and Rings

Pictures of Tethys Large Crater

Saturn - Large Crater on Tethys

Photograph of Saturns Satellite Tethys

High Resolution View of Tethys

Cratered Surface of Tethys

Saturn Moon Tethys

Speeding Away from Tethys

Not-So-Dark Side of Tethys

Tethys in Full View

Southern Face of Tethys

Rough Sphere of Tethys

Tethys Meets Dione

Cassini Close Look at Tethys

Dark Belt of Tethys

Tethys Great Rift

Tethys Meets Dione Animation

Map of Tethys - February 2010

Big Bangs on Tethys

Broad Impact on Tethys

Map of Tethys - February 2008

Tethys Truncated Shadow

Tethys Subtle Hues

North and South on Tethys

Tethys: The Sea Goddess

Tethys Polar Maps - February 2010

Tethys Polar Maps - February 2010

The moon Tethys occupies the right foreground of this Saturnian scene. This view from NASA Cassini spacecraft looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Tethys and toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.

Seen by NASA Cassini spacecraft, Tethys, like many moons in the solar system, keeps one face pointed towards the planet around which it orbits. Tethys anti-Saturn face is seen here, fully illuminated, basking in sunlight. The Odysseus crater is 280 miles (450 kilometers) across while Tethys is 660 miles (1,062 kilometers) across. See PIA07693 for a closer view and more information on the Odysseus crater. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Tethys. North on Tethys is up and rotated 33 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 15, 2013. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 503,000 miles (809,000 kilometers) from Tethys. Image scale is 3 miles (5 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18275

An illuminated quarter of the moon Tethys is imaged near a swath of Saturn rings. Though the moon appears to be hanging directly below the rings, Tethys is actually farther from NASA Cassini spacecraft, and the rings are in the foreground.

Terrain on Saturn moon Tethys, defined with craters, is shown in front of the hazy atmosphere of the larger moon Titan in this image from NASA Cassini spacecraft. This view looks toward the Saturn-facing sides of Titan and Tethys.

The Odysseus Crater sprawls across the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere of the moon Tethys.

Like most moons in the solar system, Tethys is covered by impact craters. Some craters bear witness to incredibly violent events, such as the crater Odysseus (seen here at the right of the image). While Tethys is 660 miles (1,062 kilometers) across, the crater Odysseus is 280 miles (450 kilometers) across, covering about 4.5 percent of the moon's surface area. A comparably sized crater on Earth would be as large as Russia. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Tethys. North on Tethys is up and rotated 42 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 11, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 118,000 miles (190,000 kilometers) from Tethys. Image scale is 3,280 feet (1 kilometer) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia18317

The ancient gorge of Ithaca Chasma carves a path across Tethys and continues out of sight over the moon limb

From NASA Cassini spacecraft perspective, Saturn moon Dione passes in front of the moon Tethys in this mutual event.

Cassini looks toward Tethys and its great crater Odysseus, while at the same time capturing veiled Titan in the distance at left

Appearing like an iris of a human eye, the huge Odysseus Crater dominates the sphere of the moon Tethys.

An extreme false-color view of Tethys reveals a surface detail not visible in a monochrome view taken at the same time

Tethys appears to be peeking out from behind Rhea, watching the watcher. Scientists believe that Tethys' surprisingly high albedo is due to the water ice jets emerging from its neighbor, Enceladus. The fresh water ice becomes the E ring and can eventually arrive at Tethys, giving it a fresh surface layer of clean ice. Lit terrain seen here is on the anti-Saturn side of Rhea. North on Rhea is up. The image was taken in red light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 20, 2012. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 59 degrees. Image scale is 7 miles (11 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18293

Geologic faults among craters on Saturn moon Tethys are depicted in this image captured during a flyby of the moon by NASA Cassini spacecraft on Aug. 14, 2010.

Tethys may not be tiny by normal standards, but when it is captured alongside Saturn, it cant help but seem pretty small in this image from NASA Cassini spacecraft.

The two large craters on Tethys, near the line where day fades to night, almost resemble two giant eyes observing Saturn. The location of these craters on Tethys' terminator throws their topography into sharp relief. Both are large craters, but the larger and southernmost of the two shows a more complex structure. The angle of the lighting highlights a central peak in this crater. Central peaks are the result of the surface reacting to the violent post-impact excavation of the crater. The northern crater does not show a similar feature. Possibly the impact was too small to form a central peak, or the composition of the material in the immediate vicinity couldn't support the formation of a central peak. In this image Tethys is significantly closer to the camera, while the planet is in the background. Yet the moon is still utterly dwarfed by the giant Saturn. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Tethys. North on Tethys is up and rotated 42 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 11, 2015. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 75,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) from Tethys. Image scale at Tethys is 4 miles (7 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia18318

This global map of Saturn moon Tethys was created using images taken during flybys of NASA Cassini spacecraft.

This updated global map of Saturn moon Tethys was created using images taken by NASA Cassini spacecraft.

Saturn - Tethys from 594,000 kilometers 368,000 miles Away

NASA's Cassini gazes across the icy rings of Saturn toward the icy moon Tethys, whose night side is illuminated by Saturnshine, or sunlight reflected by the planet. Tethys was on the far side of Saturn with respect to Cassini here; an observer looking upward from the moon's surface toward Cassini would see Saturn's illuminated disk filling the sky. Tethys was brightened by a factor of two in this image to increase its visibility. A sliver of the moon's sunlit northern hemisphere is seen at top. A bright wedge of Saturn's sunlit side is seen at lower left. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 10 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on May 13, 2017. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 750,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 140 degrees. Image scale is 43 miles (70 kilometers) per pixel on Saturn. The distance to Tethys was about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers). The image scale on Tethys is about 56 miles (90 kilometers) per pixel. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21342

With the expanded range of colors visible to Cassini's cameras, differences in materials and their textures become apparent that are subtle or unseen in natural color views. Here, the giant impact basin Odysseus on Saturn's moon Tethys stands out brightly from the rest of the illuminated icy crescent. This distinct coloration may result from differences in either the composition or structure of the terrain exposed by the giant impact. Odysseus (280 miles, or 450 kilometers, across) is one of the largest impact craters on Saturn's icy moons, and may have significantly altered the geologic history of Tethys. Tethys' dark side (at right) is faintly illuminated by reflected light from Saturn. Images taken using ultraviolet, green and infrared spectral filters were combined to create this color view. North on Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) is up in this view. The view was acquired on May 9, 2015 at a distance of approximately 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) from Tethys. Image scale is 1.1 mile (1.8 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18329

An illusion of perspective, Saturn's moon Tethys seems to hang above the planet's north pole in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) is actually farther away than Saturn in this image. Lacking visual clues about distance, our brains place the moon above Saturn's north pole. Tethys, like all of Saturn's major moons and its ring system, orbits almost exactly in the planet's equatorial plane. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 17 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera on Jan. 26, 2015 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.1 million miles (3.4 million kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale on Saturn is 120 miles (200 kilometers) per pixel. Tethys has been brightened by a factor of three relative to Saturn to enhance its visibility. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20488

NASACassini spacecraft captures this dual portrait of an apparently dead moon and one that is very much alive. Tethys, shows no signs of recent geologic activity. Enceladus, however, is covered in fractures and faults and spews icy particles into space

NASA Cassini spacecraft looks toward an area between the trailing hemisphere and anti-Saturn side of Tethys and spies the large crater Melanthius near the moon south pole.

The shadow of the moon Tethys stretches across Saturn A ring before fading into the B ring as the shadow extends towards the lower right of this image.

A huge impact created Odysseus Crater, which covers a large part of Saturn moon Tethys in this image from NASA Cassini spacecraft.

This global digital map of Saturn moon Tethys was created using data taken by the Cassini spacecraft, with gaps in coverage filled in by NASA Voyager spacecraft data

Saturn moon Dione passes by the moon Tethys in this NASA Cassini spacecraft depiction of a mutual event in which one moon passes close to or in front of another moon.

Saturn and Tethys

Tethys, dwarfed by the scale of Saturn and its rings, appears as an elegant crescent in this image taken by NASA's Cassini Spacecraft. Views like this are impossible from Earth, where we only see Saturn's moons as (more or less) fully illuminated disks. The region of Saturn seen at left is on the planet's night side. Reflected light from the rings dimly illuminates the planet's northern hemisphere. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Tethys. North on Tethys is up and rotated 24 degrees to the left. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 18, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 184,000 miles (296,000 kilometers) from Tethys. Image scale is 11 miles (18 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18348

Hi-Res on Tethys

Tethys, one of Saturn's larger icy moons, vaguely resembles an eyeball staring off into space in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The resemblance is due to the enormous crater, Odysseus, and its complex of central peaks. Like any solar system moon, Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) has suffered many impacts. These impacts are a prime shaper of the appearance of a moon's surface , especially when the moon has no active geological processes. In this case, a large impact not only created a crater known as Odysseus, but the rebound of the impact caused the mountainous peaks, named Scheria Montes, to form in the center of the crater. This view looks toward the leading side of Tethys. North on Tethys is up and rotated 1 degree to the left. The image was taken in green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 10, 2016. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 228,000 miles (367,000 kilometers) from Tethys. Image scale is 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20518

The northern hemisphere of Saturn moon Tethys is seen in this updated polar stereographic map, mosaicked from the best-available images obtained by NASA Cassini spacecraft.

The southern hemisphere of Saturn moon Tethys is seen in this updated polar stereographic maps, mosaicked from the best-available images obtained by NASA Cassini spacecraft.

The southern hemisphere of Tethys is seen in this polar stereographic map, mosaicked from the best-available images from NASA Cassini spacecraft.

The northern hemisphere of Tethys is seen in this polar stereographic map, mosaicked from the best-available images from NASA Cassini spacecraft.

This enhanced-color mosaic of Saturn's icy moon Tethys shows a range of features on the moon's trailing hemisphere. Tethys is tidally locked to Saturn, so the trailing hemisphere is the side of the moon that always faces opposite its direction of motion as it orbits the planet. Images taken using clear, green, infrared and ultraviolet spectral filters were combined to create the view, which highlights subtle color differences across Tethys' surface at wavelengths not visible to human eyes. The moon's surface is fairly uniform in natural color. The color of the surface changes conspicuously across the disk, from yellowish hues to nearly white. These broad color changes are affected by a number of external processes. First, Saturn's diffuse E-ring preferentially bombards Tethys' leading hemisphere, toward the right side of this image, with ice bright ice grains. At the same time, charged particles from Saturn's radiation belt bombard the surface on the trailing side, causing color changes due to chemical alteration of the materials there. The albedo -- a measure of the surface's reflectivity -- drops by 10 to 15 percent from the moon's leading side to the trailing side. Similar global color patterns exist on other Saturnian moons. On a much smaller scale, enigmatic, arc-shaped, reddish streaks also are faintly visible across the heavily-cratered surface, particularly if one enhances color saturation in the image (see PIA19637 for a close-up view of these features). The origin of this localized color contrast is not yet understood. Mountains on the floor of the 280 mile- (450 kilometer-) wide Odysseus impact basin are visible at upper right, around the two o'clock position. This mosaic is an orthographic projection constructed from 52 Cassini images obtained on April 11, 2015 with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. Resolution is about 1,000 feet (300 meters) per pixel. The images were obtained at a distance of approximately 33,000 miles (53,000 kilometers) from Tethys. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19636

The moon Enceladus passes behind the larger moon Tethys, as seen in this pair of images taken by NASA Cassini spacecraft. The image on the left was taken a little more than a minute before the image on the right.

This set of global, color mosaics of Saturn moon Tethys was produced from images taken by NASA Cassini spacecraft during its first ten years exploring the Saturn system.

These two views of Tethys show the high-resolution color left and the topography right of the leading, or forward-facing, hemisphere of this ice-rich satellite. Data for these images is from NASA Cassini spacecraft.

This global digital map of Saturn moon Tethys was created using data taken during Cassini and Voyager spacecraft flybys. The map is an equidistant projection and has a scale of 293 meters 961 feet per pixel

Janus and Tethys demonstrate the main difference between small moons and large ones. It's all about the moon's shape. Moons like Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) are large enough that their own gravity is sufficient to overcome the material strength of the substances they are made of (mostly ice in the case of Tethys) and mold them into spherical shapes. But small moons like Janus (111 miles or 179 kilometers across) are not massive enough for their gravity to form them into a sphere. Janus and its like are left as irregularly shaped bodies. Saturn's narrow F ring and the outer edge of its A ring slice across the scene. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 0.23 degrees below the ring plane. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 27, 2015. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 593,000 miles (955,000 kilometers) from Janus. Image scale at Janus is 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) per pixel. Tethys was at a distance of 810,000 miles (1.3 million kilometers) for an image scale of 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18353

Tethys trailing side shows two terrains that tell a story of a rough past. To the north up, in image is older, rougher terrain, while to the south is new material dubbed mooth plains by scientists. This image was taken by NASA Cassini spacecraft.

Hi-Res on Tethys - False Color

This enhanced-color mosaic of Saturn's icy moon Tethys shows a range of features on the moon's trailing hemisphere. Tethys is tidally locked to Saturn, so the trailing hemisphere is the side of the moon that always faces opposite its direction of motion as it orbits the planet. This view was obtained about two and a half hours earlier than PIA19636 and shows terrain slightly farther to the west and south of that view. Two versions of the mosaic are presented here: one with standard image processing (Figure 1), and one that strongly enhances the relief of craters and other surface features (Figure 2). Images taken using clear, green, infrared and ultraviolet spectral filters were combined to create the view, which highlights subtle color differences across Tethys' surface at wavelengths not visible to human eyes. The moon's surface is fairly uniform in natural color. The color of the surface can be seen to change across the disk, from yellowish hues to nearly white. These broad color changes are affected by a number of external processes. First, Saturn's diffuse E-ring preferentially bombards Tethys' leading hemisphere, toward the right side in this image, with ice bright ice grains. At the same time, charged particles from Saturn's radiation belt bombard the surface on the trailing side, causing color changes due to chemical alteration of the materials there. The albedo -- a measure of the surface's reflectivity -- drops by 10 to 15 percent from the moon's leading side to the trailing side. Similar global color patterns exist on other Saturnian moons. On a much smaller scale, enigmatic, arc-shaped reddish streaks are faintly visible across the heavily-cratered surface, particularly in the upper right quarter of the image (see PIA19637 for a close-up view of these features). The origin of this localized color contrast is not yet understood. This mosaic is an orthographic projection constructed from 52 Cassini images obtained on April 11, 2015 with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. Image scale is about 1,000 feet (300 meters) per pixel. The images were obtained at a distance of approximately 33,000 miles (53,000 kilometers) from Tethys. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19638

Unusual arc-shaped, reddish streaks cut across the surface of Saturn's ice-rich moon Tethys in this enhanced-color mosaic. The red streaks are narrow, curved lines on the moon's surface, only a few miles (or kilometers) wide but several hundred miles (or kilometers) long. The red streaks are among the most unusual color features on Saturn's moons to be revealed by Cassini's cameras. A few of the red arcs can be faintly seen in Cassini imaging observations made earlier in the mission, but the color images for this observation, which were obtained in April 2015, were the first to show large northern areas of Tethys under the illumination and viewing conditions necessary to see the features clearly. As the Saturn system moved into its northern hemisphere summer over the past few years, northern latitudes have become increasingly well illuminated. As a result, the red arc features have become clearly visible for the first time. The origin of the features and their reddish color is currently a mystery to Cassini scientists. Possibilities being studied include ideas that the reddish material is exposed ice with chemical impurities, or the result of outgassing from inside Tethys. The streaks could also be associated with features like fractures that are below the resolution of the available images. Except for a few small craters on Dione, reddish tinted features are rare on other moons of Saturn. However, many reddish features are observed on the geologically young surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Images taken using clear, green, infrared and ultraviolet spectral filters were combined to create the view, which highlights subtle color differences across Tethys' surface at wavelengths not visible to human eyes. The moon's surface is fairly uniform in natural color. The yellowish tones on the left side of the view are a result of alteration of the moon's surface by high-energy particles from Saturn's magnetosphere. This particle radiation slams into the moon's trailing hemisphere, modifying it chemically and changing its appearance in enhanced-color views like this one. The area of Tethys shown here is centered on 30 degrees north latitude, 187 degrees west longitude, and measures 305 by 258 miles (490 by 415 kilometers) across. The original color images were obtained at a resolution of about 2,300 feet (700 meters) per pixel on April 11, 2015. This is a cropped close-up of an area visible in PIA19636. This is a mosaic of images that have been photometrically calibrated and map-projected. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19637

NASA Cassini spacecraft profiles several features oriented north-south on Saturn moon Tethys. A line of craters runs north to south near the center of the image: from top Phemius, Polyphemus, Ajax and the large southern crater Antinous.

Tethys Walks the Line

Telesto: Companion of Tethys

Icy Crown on Tethys

Saturn moon Dione, in the foreground of this image from NASA Cassini spacecraft, appears darker than the moon Tethys. Tethys appears brighter because it has a higher albedo than Dione, meaning Tethys reflects more sunlight.