[meteorite-list] Behold the Violent History of Saturn's White Whale Moon (Prometheus)

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-057  

Behold the Violent History of Saturn's White Whale Moon
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 19, 2010

Like the battered white whale Moby Dick taunting Captain Ahab, Saturn's
moon Prometheus surges toward the viewer in a 3-D image from NASA's
Cassini spacecraft.

The image exposes the irregular shape and circular surface scars on
Prometheus, pointing to a violent history. These craters are probably
the remnants from impacts long ago.

Prometheus is one of Saturn's innermost moons. It orbits the gas-giant
at a distance of about 140,000 kilometers (86,000 miles) and is 86
kilometers (53 miles) across at its widest point. The porous, icy world
was originally discovered in images taken by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft
back in 1980.

Cassini's narrow-angle camera captured two black-and-white images of the
moon on Dec. 26, 2009, and the imaging team combined the images to make
this new stereo view. It looks different from the "egg-cellent" raw
image of Prometheus obtained on Jan. 27
<http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-034> because that
view shows one of the short ends of the oddly shaped moon. In this 3-D
image, the sun illuminates Prometheus at a different angle, making the
moon's elongated body visible.

The Cassini Equinox Mission is a joint United States and European
endeavor. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was
designed, developed and assembled at JPL. For more information about the
Cassini Equinox Mission visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jia-rui.c.cook at jpl.nasa.gov

2010-057