Cosmos4Kids.com Home Link to Universe Link to Galaxies Link to Stars Link to Solar System Link to Exploration Link to Activities
Cosmos4Kids.comWallpapers
 

Saturn's Moon Phoebe


Staurn's Moon Phoebe

The Cassini spacecraft captured a series of high resolution images of the small moon Phoebe. This moon of Saturn shows an unusual variation in brightness over its surface due to the existence on some crater slopes and floors of bright material -- thought to contain ice -- on what is otherwise one of the darkest known bodies in the solar system. Bright streaks on the rim of the large crater in the North (up in this image) may have been revealed by the collapse of overlying darker material from the crater wall. The large crater below right-of-center shows evidence of layered deposits of alternating bright and dark material.

Phoebe's surface shows many large- and small-scale craters. The emerging view of Phoebe is that it might have been part of an ancestral population of icy, comet-like bodies, some of which now reside in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. The images were taken with the narrow-angle camera at distances ranging from 15,974 kilometers (9,926 miles) to 12,422 kilometers (7,719 miles). The Cassini spacecraft left Earth in 1997 and entered Saturn's orbit in July 2005. Scientists hope to keep Cassini orbiting Saturn for at least four years.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Download Wallpaper: 800 x 600 | 1024 x 768

Return to galleries: Earth | Solar System | Stars & Galaxies | Spaceflight & Spacecraft



RELATED LINKS
- Cosmos4Kids: Solar System
- Cosmos4Kids: Saturn
- Cosmos4Kids: Saturn's Moons

- NASA: Home Page
- NASA: Cassini-Huygens Mission
- NASA: Cassini Imaging Home Page


 
- Home Page
- Real World Ex.
> Activities
- Site Map
- Site Tour
- Help Topics

Custom Search

* The custom search only looks at Rader's sites.


Link to Cosmos4Kids.com Link to Biology4Kids.com Link to Chem4Kids.com Link to Geography4Kids.com Link to Physics4Kids.com Link to NumberNut.com Rader Network Side Navigation

 

Go to Help Page Go for site help or list of astronomy topics at the site map!
©copyright 1997-2010 Andrew Rader Studios, All rights reserved.
Current Page: Cosmos4Kids.com | Activities & Quizzes | Solar System Wallpaper

 

** Andrew Rader Studios does not monitor or review the content available at these web sites. They are paid advertisements and neither partners nor recommeded web sites.