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Astronomy Picture of the Day - Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod ^ | 12 Mar, 2023 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team

Posted on 03/12/2023 12:39:50 PM PDT by MtnClimber

Explanation: What lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters? To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft that once orbited Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon and took images of unprecedented detail. A six-image mosaic from the 2005 pass, featured here in scientifically assigned colors, shows a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and an odd, sponge-like surface. At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark reddish material. This material appears similar to that covering part of another of Saturn's moons, Iapetus, and might sink into the ice moon as it better absorbs warming sunlight. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, rotates chaotically, and has a density so low that it likely houses a vast system of caverns inside.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: nasa
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To: MtnClimber

Looks sort of like a chunk of coral.


21 posted on 03/12/2023 3:54:33 PM PDT by arthurus (covfefe lool)
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To: MtnClimber

Looks like a PUMICE stone.............................


22 posted on 03/13/2023 5:19:39 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: 4Liberty

23 posted on 03/13/2023 5:21:21 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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