The days of NASA's Cassini spacecraft could be numbered, but still it has life left in it. While revolving around Saturn, it captured a stunning picture. In the new photo taken by Cassini, the icy surface of Saturn's moon Rhea is looking sparkling.

Rhea is the second-largest of Saturn's 62 moons and measures 949 miles across. The latest picture of the moon was captured by the Cassini spacecraft on June 3. The US space agency has unveiled the picture on Monday (August 1).

Rhea is almost entirely made up of ice, mixed with rock traces, making it look like a dirty snowball. Besides, the battered moon has experienced many impacts, which have made it one of the solar system’s most heavily cratered celestial bodies.

While describing the picture, NASA officials wrote, “Rhea, like many moons in the outer solar system, appears dazzlingly bright in full sunlight. This is the signature of the water ice that forms most of the moon's surface”.

The icy moon also possesses a quite thin oxygen-rich atmosphere, nearly 5 trillion times less dense in comparison to that of Earth’s. Even then, Rhea is the sole known celestial body beyond Earth to possess an oxygen atmosphere.

At the time of capturing the latest image, the Cassini was roughly 365,000 miles (587,000 kilometers) away from Rhea. The US space agency officials mentioned that the view has demonstrated the ‘anti-Saturn hemisphere of Rhea’.

Since 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting the gas giant. The mission of the probe is likely to end in September next year.

According to a report in Space by Samantha Mathewson, "Rhea is composed almost entirely of ice, with traces of rock mixed in, causing it to resemble a dirty snowball. What's more, the battered moon has suffered numerous impacts, making it one of the most heavily cratered celestial bodies in the solar system."

The icy moon also has a very thin oxygen-rich atmosphere that is about 5 trillion times less dense than that found on Earth. Even still, Rhea is the only known celestial body outside of Earth to have an oxygen atmosphere.

Cassini was about 365,000 miles (587,000 kilometers) away from Rhea when it captured the new portrait. The view shows the "anti-Saturn hemisphere of Rhea," NASA officials wrote. The Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn since 2004. However, the probe's mission is expected to end in September 2017.

A report published in New Sscientist revealed, "Enceladus has a massive global ocean under its frozen surface, and cracks in its exterior spew plumes of water into space. The plumes continually add icy material to one of Saturn’s rings, and offer a tantalising taste of the water within."

“That is a very fine example of why it’s so hard to design space missions,” says Alexis Bouquet, a PhD student at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “By definition, we are going to an object that we don’t know much about. So we always get surprises.”

To improve matters, a future Enceladus plume sampler could use gold sensors, which wouldn’t react in the same way as the titanium ones. Or it could use a soft, spongy net, similar to the capture devices developed for the Stardust mission, which grabbed a few specks of cosmic dust from interstellar space in 2006.