At first glance, Dione looks much like Tethys. Dione has a diameter of 1120 km and makes 1 trip around Saturn in 2 days 18 hours. The moon is 377,400 km distant from Saturn. As with most moons, Dione always has the same face towards Saturn.

     Dione has a density of 1.44 g/cm3, which is higher than the other moons of Saturn except for Titan. This means that Dione has more rocky material in it than ice.

     Dione is covered with a variety of terrain. The side away from Saturn is bright and quite smooth. The leading side (side facing direction of orbital motion) is heavily cratered and the trailing side has strange curved streaks of ice that probably oozed from cracks in the surface.