Scallop? Pumice? Only space, only hardcore Bashny.Net

Before you something like marine animal, or a piece of pumice, this is actually Saturn's moon Hyperion is the size of a little over 100 km Just with him at the last meeting the device "Cassini", the first ever artificial satellite of Saturn (however, the only Cassini was — more on that below). The difficulty of each such date that Hyperion randomly rotates to aim hard all this is on a huge distance from the Earth is already a noticeable delay of a radio signal, the equipment is old, the pilot on Board is not, in General, the horror, the horror.

Cassini, this old man, launched in 1997, completing his mission and meets with Hyperion for the last time. He has scheduled several more encounters with other satellites of Saturn. Each in its own way interesting, and Hyperion in particular because — even on a photo it is visible — most likely is half ice. Here on the moon there is no water and very little ice in deep craters near the South pole (and then still unknown), and Hyperion — almost all of it. You can argue long, where did the water on Earth, but apparently in the early Solar system it is in the form of ice were everywhere. On the moon the ice knocked out the solar radiation, and Hyperion farther from the Sun, that's where the ice and survived.

By the way, even a cursory glance at the photos is enough to understand that Hyperion the once almost knocked out. A noticeable fraction of the top of the frame is the crater, which was superimposed later and small craters. Actually, before the scientists ran for planets of terrestrial group like Mars, Venus (and now run), and the satellites of the giant planets themselves are not small, seemed like nonsense to some. Now it is clear that there is something begins the real hardcore. Unfortunately, even a cursory story about all the satellites within a few hours. We'll do it gradually.

So that's Cassini. First, the unit was twice past Venus. then, around Jupiter, where it broke down, but recovered finally came to Saturn, and so far revolves around him, and in 2005, Cassini spun off from the lander and set down on Saturn's moon Titan (not bad visible, by the way, even in mediocre telescopes). The mission was planned before 2008, but lasts and lasts and lasts and lasts... And we are just happy!

For clarity: upper photo, obtained in 2005, during the previous convergence, old, but very effective. Below is a photo with the convergence may 31 (two days were spent on data transfer and processing).

Photo: NASA P. S. And remember, only by changing their consumption — together we change the world! ©

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