{"id":16290,"date":"2015-06-02T22:15:39","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T14:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/cassini-beams-back-last-views-of-saturns-moon-hyperion\/"},"modified":"2015-06-02T22:15:39","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T14:15:39","slug":"cassini-beams-back-last-views-of-saturns-moon-hyperion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/cassini-beams-back-last-views-of-saturns-moon-hyperion\/","title":{"rendered":"Cassini beams back last views of Saturn\u2019s moon Hyperion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cassini's
Cassini\u2019s narrow-angle camera captured this view of Hyperion on May 31 at a range of 37,000 miles. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/SSI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft spiraling around Saturn zipped past the giant planet\u2019s oddball moon Hyperion for the last time Sunday, catching a final glimpse of the bizarre body\u2019s porous sponge-like surface.<\/p>\n

Cassini flew about 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometers) from Hyperion at closest approach, marking the mission\u2019s final flyby of the potato-shaped moon before the spacecraft heads for an intentional death dive into Saturn in September 2017.<\/p>\n

Measuring 255 miles in diameter on its longest axis, Hyperion is covered in deep craters and resembles a wasp\u2019s nest, with holes punched into the moon\u2019s crust from ancient collisions with asteroids, comets or other objects around Saturn\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

Hyperion rotates chaotically and is about half as dense as water, and its porosity and weak gravity field mean impactors tend to compress the moon\u2019s surface rather than leaving normally-shaped craters observed on other bodies, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

The images captured by Cassini on Sunday show features on Hyperion as small as 145 feet, NASA wrote in a press release.<\/p>\n

\"Hyperion's
Hyperion\u2019s spongy surface comes into focus in this view from Cassini during the spacecraft\u2019s May 31 flyby. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/SSI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cassini\u2019s closest flyby with Hyperion occurred in 2005 at a distance of 314 miles, or 505 kilometers.<\/p>\n

Mission managers termed Sunday\u2019s flyby of Hyperion as the \u201cfirst of the lasts\u201d for Cassini, which launched in 1997 and arrived in orbit around Saturn in 2004. The plutonium-powered probe is next aiming for a June 16 encounter with Dione, which has stripe-like canyons with ice walls coursing across its surface.<\/p>\n

Cassini\u2019s final encounter with Dione is scheduled for August.<\/p>\n

The mission\u2019s last three flybys of Enceladus, which sends huge geysers of water ice into space from fissures near its south pole, are due before the end of the year. One of the flybys scheduled for Oct. 28 will place Cassini just 30 miles over Enceladus and is timed for when the moon\u2019s plumes are at maximum output.<\/p>\n

Cassini\u2019s last close-up visit to Saturn\u2019s largest moon Titan is set for late 2016.<\/p>\n

Ground controllers plan to adjust Cassini\u2019s path around Saturn for the last phase of the probe\u2019s life, in which the spacecraft will move away from the giant planet\u2019s moons and repeatedly pass between Saturn and its rings.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cassini\u2019s narrow-angle camera captured this view of Hyperion on May 31 at a range of 37,000 miles. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/SSI NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft spiraling around Saturn zipped past the giant planet\u2019s oddball moon Hyperion for the last time Sunday, catching a final glimpse of the bizarre body\u2019s porous sponge-like surface. Cassini flew about 21,000 miles (34,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2394,4042,1562],"class_list":["post-16290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cassini","tag-hyperion","tag-saturn"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}