May 12, 1996
Every year, the Earth returns to the same point in its orbit where it was when you were born.
Tracking Saturn's Moons
Birthday · May 12, 1996
A little universe, just for you
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APOD published May 12, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
These five pairs of Hubble Space Telescope images track some of Saturn's moons as they orbit the ringed planet. A pair of images was taken every 97 minutes on November 21, 1995 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2, the normally bright ring system appearing nearly edge-on. In the top pair, the large bright moon Dione hangs above center while the smaller moons Pandora, Prometheus, and Mimas (top right image) appear near the planet's disk close to the outer ring. By the second and third pair of images, moons Rhea and Epimetheus have joined the dance. During the Saturn ring plane crossings, the reduction in light from the edge-on rings provided an opportunity for astronomer's to explore Saturn's complex moon system and search for elusive undiscovered satellites.