Cassini, an unmanned spacecraft, flew past Hyperion on Saturn’s outer moons. It captured the stunning image. The celestial body, which is roughly the size of a potato, floating in deep-sea surroundings. Cassini was able to see Hyperion’s charged surface firsthand. The moon also delivered an enormous volt shock to the spacecraft.
The constant flow of charged particles from Saturn’s magnet field and Sun causes Hyperion to become electrostatically charged. This amazing false-color image of Saturn’s moon Hyperion shows crisp detail across its strange and tumbling surface. Image: European Space Station. Astronomers believe that many of the celestial bodies within our Solar System have an electrostatic charge.
The Cassini data, however, is the first time that a natural object charged in space has been observed. Cassinin captured the image during a flyby at the 410 x 220km moon on 26 September. 2005, released the photo by the European Space Station this week. Hyperion is one of our Solar System’s largest bodies. It has dimensions that resemble a potato, and an irregular-shaped pumicestone surface. According to the European Space Station, Hyperion’s unique appearance can be attributed to its low density and high porosity. These properties make the moon porous and look like a sponge.
It has well-preserved, perfectly preserved craters that are all sizes and shapes, which is why it’s so dense. Most of Hyperion is made up of water-ice. Scientists think that Saturn VII (also known as Hyperion) consists mainly of water and a small amount of rock. This view was created by combining images taken with ultraviolet, green and infrared filters. ESA stated that Hyperion’s natural redness was reduced in the false-colour image.
This enhances the visibility of its surface features. Cassini was about 62,000 kilometres from Hyperion when the picture was taken – the image scale is 362 m per pixel. Cassini and Huygens is an international joint venture between NASA, ESA, ASI (Italy’s space agency). Part of California Institute of Technology, Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed, built, and assembled Cassini’s onboard cameras.
Hyperion is the Titan god of observation and watchfulness. The moon’s name comes from him. Two American astronomers William Cranch Bond (1789-1859), and George Phillips Bond (1825-1865), discovered it. William Lassell (1799-1880) an English merchant and astronomer was also the first to discover it.