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A Journey to the End of Time

The Solar System in 3D, in real time

A simulation of the Solar System driven by real ephemerides. The Sun, the planets, Pluto and the major moons, space probes, the International Space Station, nearby stars and the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way are where they really are at the chosen moment. You can run time from 1700 to 2100, fly from one object to another and look at the sky from anywhere on Earth.

Rhea

Moon of Saturn

Facts

Mean diameter
1527 km
Mean distance from the planet
527,200 km
Orbital period
4.52 days
Discovery
Giovanni Domenico Cassini, 1672

Rhea is Saturn's second largest moon, an even mixture of ice and rock, more heavily cratered than Dione and Tethys. Until the Voyager flybys of 1980 and 1981 it was just a dot of light.

The Cassini probe found a very thin exosphere of oxygen and carbon dioxide there. In 2008 it also found hints of material orbiting Rhea: perhaps the first sign of rings around a moon.

Sources