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Phoebe - Saturn's Moons Slideshow
Phoebe was the first moon visited by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft. This is a mosaic of several images of a moon that is about 220 kilometers across. The image shows evidence for the idea that Phoebe may be an ice-rich object that is coated with a thin layer of dark material. Small bright craters in the image are probably younger features. These craters have been observed on other icy moons, such as Ganymede at Jupiter.
When objects hit the surface of Phoebe, the collisions revealed fresh, bright material -- probably ice -- under the surface layer. Additional evidence can be seen on some crater walls where the darker material appears to have slid down, exposing more light-colored material. Some areas of the image that are particularly bright - especially near lower right - are over-exposed. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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