A New Look At Saturn's Hyperion
(Sep 30, 2005) Cassini made its first flyby of Saturn's moon Hyperion last week, and took this amazing photograph. The spacecraft got within 500 km (310 miles), and you can clearly see how unusual this spongy-looking moon is. Scientists think that Hyperion is little more than a pile of rubble, loosely held together by its own gravity because much of its mass is just empty space. Hyperion is only 266 kilometers (165 miles) across, has an irregular shape, and spins in a chaotic rotation.
Damn, this is so cool for me on so many levels, a lot of them geeky. Those who saw my dorky FFXI pic on my iamtheshow post would remember that for two years (and in certain instances), I used the handle "Hyperion" for a number of things (Hyperion, of course, being the Greek Titan of Light). Titan, also one of Saturn's satellites (and the most famous, being the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere), was also the site of the war that was a recurring theme in Cowboy Bebop. And of course, a lot of Saturn's moons are named after the rest of the Greek Titans, which score big in my book for referencing the group my old Quake clan was named after.
Oh right, there was an article. That was pretty cool, too.
Vivid View of Spongy Hyperion [Universe Today]