Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters

NASA ^ | June 30, 2013 | (see photo credit)

[60Gunner]

Looks like it has barnacles on it.

[Gefn]

Amazing

[shibumi]

"Looks like my bath sponge."



It definitely has the appearance of biological origin.

Maybe it's a cosmic virus. Or a bit of space coral .....

[cripplecreek]

My first guess would be that its largely made of fine dust like flour with low enough gravity that the craters don’t collapse.

[jespasinthru]

I was thinking along those same lines. Every one of those holes could be made into a separate ecosystem if you cover them over with a film of some sort to protect the artificial environments inside. Unless of course it really is made of some kind of spongelike material.

[SunkenCiv]

They were lucky it slept with its mouth open.

[SunkenCiv]

If an invasion, it’s been danged slow getting here. Of course, that’s just my Earthcentered thinking there, maybe they have no interest in us.

[SunkenCiv]

;’)

[SunkenCiv]

It appears to be more like pumice; now I regret not seeing if NASA’s made density and mass measurements during a flyby.

[SunkenCiv]

Could be, probably aren’t, but that would depend on what they’d live on, food wise.

[katana]

Who's to say they're not already here?

[laplata]

Thanks for all the neat posts, SunkenCiv!