The Cassini spacecraft has just returned two new images of Telesto, a tiny “Trojan moon” in the Saturnian system. Telesto is the leading-edge companion of Tethys, orbiting on the same plane and occupying a LaGrange point 60° ahead of its much larger, icy counterpart. This miniscule satellite was only discovered in 1980 via Earth-based observations, and it wasn’t until October of last year that the first high-resolution image was beamed home.

The accompanying press releases can be found here at NASA’s Planetary Photojournal.

Image Credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

These views show surface features and color variation on the Trojan moon Telesto. The smooth surface of this moon suggests that, like Pandora, it is covered with a mantle of fine, dust-sized icy material.

The monochrome image was taken in visible light (see PIA07696). To create the false-color view, ultraviolet, green and infrared images were combined into a single black and white picture that isolates and maps regional color differences. This “color map” was then superposed over a clear-filter image. The origin of the color differences is not yet understood, but may be caused by subtle differences in the surface composition or the sizes of grains making up the icy soil.

Tiny Telesto is a mere 24 kilometers (15 miles) wide.

The image was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 25, 2005 at a distance of approximately 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) from Telesto and at a Sun-Telesto-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 58 degrees. Image scale is 118 meters (387 feet) per pixel.

Relish these views, as you won’t be spotting this little critter from your backyard anytime soon.