Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters

Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA, Posted on: Sunday, 18 January 2009, 08:21 CST Download full size image

What lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters? Nobody knows. To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon in late 2005 and took an image of unprecedented detail. That image, shown above in false color, shows a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and a generally odd surface. The slight differences in color likely show differences in surface composition. At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark material. Inspection of the image shows bright features indicating that the dark material might be only tens of meters thick in some places. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, rotates chaotically, and has a density so low that it might house a vast system of caverns inside.

More Images

Mars
Gullies.This gullies seen in this VIS image are located on the western rim region of the Argyre Basin. ...

---

Universe
GJ1214b (Artist’s impression).This artist’s impression shows how the newly discovered super-Earth surrounding the nearby star GJ...

---