Space Topics: Saturn
The Year in Pictures: 2005
Cassini's Closeup on Battered and Pitted Hyperion
Credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute |
September 26. In the fall of 2005, Cassini began a
whirlwind tour of the icy moons of Saturn, which include Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea,
and Hyperion, acquiring sets of images and other data that vastly improve upon
the Voyagers' initial reconnaissance of these worlds from 1980 and 1981. Each
world was revealed to be a unique place, on which the forces of internal geologic
activity and impact cratering balance differently to produce distinct landscapes. Of
all of the worlds that Cassini visited, Hyperion was certainly the oddest. Its
surface proved to be saturated with weird conical craters, many of them having
extremely dark floors and/or bright, icy walls showing signs of avalanching.
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