Cassini Closes in on Saturn's Tumbling Moon Hyperion

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Rosemary Sullivant 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Rosemary.sullivant@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2011-266 Aug. 26, 2011

Cassini Closes in on Saturn's Tumbling Moon Hyperion

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-266&cid=release_2011-266

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured new views of Saturn's oddly shaped moon Hyperion
during its encounter with this cratered body on Thursday, Aug. 25. Raw images were
acquired as the spacecraft flew past the moon at a distance of about 15,500 miles (25,000
kilometers), making this the second closest encounter.

Hyperion is a small moon -- just 168 miles (270 kilometers) across. It has an irregular
shape and surface appearance, and it rotates chaotically as it tumbles along in orbit. This
odd rotation prevented scientists from predicting exactly what terrain the spacecraft's
cameras would image during this flyby.

However, this flyby's closeness has likely allowed Cassini's cameras to map new
territory. At the very least, it will help scientists improve color measurements of the
moon. It will also help them determine how the moon's brightness changes as lighting
and viewing conditions change, which can provide insight into the texture of the surface.
The color measurements provide additional information about different materials on the
moon's deeply pitted surface.

The latest raw images of Hyperion are online at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/ .

Cassini's closest encounter with Hyperion was on September 26, 2005, when the
spacecraft flew approximately 310 miles (500 kilometers) above the moon's surface.
Cassini's next flyby of Hyperion will be on Sept. 16, 2011, when it passes the tumbling
moon at a distance of about 36,000 miles (58,000 kilometers).

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were
designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the
Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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