Thursday, September 15, 2011

Cassini Shows Us Rocky Hyperion

Acquired by Cassini, these raw images (images which have not been processed or edited) of small, Saturnian moon Hyperion, are very expressive. On Cassini & Hyperion's flyby August 25, Cassini was just 25,000 kilometers from the celestial deformity (Hyperion is very irregular in shape) and although seeming as if there was no point of these pictures, NASA thinks they have found new ground. "However, this flyby's closeness has likely allowed Cassini's cameras to map new territory. At the very least, it will help scientists improve color measurements of the moon. It will also help them determine how the moon's brightness changes as lighting and viewing conditions change, which can provide insight into the texture of the surface. The color measurements provide additional information about different materials on the moon's deeply pitted surface," Science Daily writes.

These are few, select images (raw) by Cassini.(Not all images are from August 2011. The last image was from October 2006).







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