The Cassini
spacecraft snapped this shot of Saturn's cratered moon Hyperion, from a
distance of approximately 94,000 miles (151,000 kilometers).
Hyperion is just
174 miles across on average, meaning surface gravity is so low that
material ejected from numerous impacts often escapes the moon entirely. Analyses
of Hyperion have revealed that the moon is roughly 40 percent empty space
and resembles a porous
bath sponge. Researchers also found the moon consists mainly of water ice,
as opposed to rock.
The Cassini-Huygens
mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the
Italian Space Agency.
— JPL and SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science
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