PIA06527: Oddball Moon


Oddball Moon

Caption:

This image reveals the odd shape of Saturn's moon Hyperion and an intriguing variation in brightness across its surface. The diameter of Hyperion is 266 kilometers (165 miles).

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Oct. 20, 2004, at a distance of about 2.2 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Hyperion and at a Sun-Hyperion-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 50 degrees. The image scale is 13 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel.

Background Info:

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Hyperion
System Saturn
Target Type Satellite
Mission Cassini-Huygens
Instrument Host Cassini Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
Detector Narrow Angle Camera
Extra Keywords Grayscale, Visual
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2004-11-24
Date in Caption 2004-10-20
Image Credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06527
Identifier PIA06527