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APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 5:06 am
by APOD Robot
Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters
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.
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:18 am
by Ann
Orion looking for his sponge, by Johannes Hevelius from Uranographia,
celestial catalogue of 1690
Can't get over the fact that Hyperion looks like a sponge. Who could have lost such a thing in space? Who but Orion, the mighty hunter?
Ann
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 2:10 pm
by Chris Peterson
Ann wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:18 am
Can't get over the fact that Hyperion looks like a sponge. Who could have lost such a thing in space? Who but Orion, the mighty hunter?
Ann
To me it looks very much like a delicious morel mushroom.
_
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 4:18 pm
by AVAO
...I think this is more like the same material that covers the rest of the surface, except that it's wetted in the crater bottom by an unknown liquid...
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/527 ... bba0_o.jpg
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 5:09 pm
by Ann
So did you turn your Hyperion picture on the side to resemble a desiccated, moldering and fossilized human brain on purpose?
Ann
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 5:17 pm
by zendae
If there are underground caverns, perhaps controlled conditions are possible for habitation and bases.
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 5:31 pm
by Fred the Cat
Unknown
atomic and molecular compounds encountered when visiting foreign domains pose threats to human safety.
Suitports may be the answer to keep your nose from knowing how bad it smells even at Earth’s
Hyperion.
I’d much rather smell a
tree in
hindsight.
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 7:17 pm
by AVAO
AVAO wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 4:18 pm
...I think this is more like the same material that covers the rest of the surface, except that it's wetted in the crater bottom by an unknown
liquid...
To be more precise. These currently no longer have to be liquid. I just mean that substances such as methane or ethane in liquid form could have been involved in their formation. The discolouration could then also be the result of chemical reactions.
Many craters with dark areas also have dark spots, which could be outflow openings.
Due to the rupture cliffs, I could also imagine that the whole area in the middle of the APOD picture was not created by a huge impact, but by the whole area slipping into an almost empty core. (If this effectively consists or consisted in large parts of water ice, this could have evaporated during an earlier approach to other moons, for example...)
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 7:27 pm
by johnnydeep
Hmm, so the statement "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." seems to be implying that the holes in this Saturnian sponge might have formed over time as dark material splotches were - perhaps gently - deposited on the surface, only to cause local heating by absorbing sunlight, thereby melting the underlying material and creating the holes. Pretty neat, if true.
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:50 pm
by ErasmusRoterodamus
Seems that Hyperion may be a very large, dead comet, with nothing left to expel! No guess at what the skeleton consists of!
Re: APOD: Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd... (2023 Mar 12)
Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2023 12:22 am
by orin stepanek
ErasmusRoterodamus wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:50 pm
Seems that Hyperion may be a very large, dead comet, with nothing left to expel! No guess at what the skeleton consists of!
My oldest post; a dead comet; but who knows for certain!