Cassini to make fly-by of Dione
The NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft makes a fly-by of Saturn's moon Dione on 11 October 2005, when it flies to within 500 kilometres of the surface.
During this close fly-by, Cassini will image the scarred terrain, which is a landscape of great, white streaks that are bright ice cliffs created by tectonic fractures.
Dione is the second densest moon of Saturn, after Titan. It is probably composed of a rocky core making up one-third of the moon's mass, and the rest is composed of water ice. It is an icy body similar to Tethys and Rhea.
The surface includes heavily cratered terrain, with moderate to lightly cratered plains, as well as some severely cracked areas, with very bright material on the walls of the fractures.
Cassini previously flew past Dione at a distance of approximately 72 100 kilometres on 4 December 2004.
