Cassinis Dione Flyby Oct 11th

[FLO]

Cassini to Tour Moon with Streaks

The Cassini spacecraft will come face-to-face with the great, white streaks of Saturn's moon Dione on Oct. 11, 2005, when it flies to within 500 kilometers (310 miles) of the surface. During the close flyby Cassini will image the scarred terrain, which is a landscape of bright ice cliffs created by tectonic fractures.

Dione [dy-OH-nee] is the second densest moon of Saturn, after Titan. Dione is probably composed of a rocky core making up one-third of the moon's mass, and the rest is composed of water-ice. Dione is an icy body that is similar to Tethys and Rhea.

Dione's icy surface includes heavily cratered terrain, with moderately and lightly cratered plains, as well as some severely cracked areas, with very bright material on the walls of the fractures. The heavily cratered terrain has numerous craters greater than 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) in diameter. The plains area tends to have craters less than 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) in diameter. Contrary to what scientists had expected upon studying this fascinating moon, much of the heavily cratered terrain is located on the trailing hemisphere, with the less cratered plains area existing on the leading hemisphere. This anomaly suggests that during the period of heavy meteors bombardment, Dione was tidally locked to Saturn in the opposite orientation. This means that, due to its interaction with Saturn's gravitational field, Dione always shows the same side toward Saturn.

Because Dione is relatively small, an impact causing a 35-kilometer (21.7 mile) crater could have spun the satellite. Since there are many craters larger than 35-kilometers, Dione could have been spun repeatedly.

Dione has probably been tidally locked in its current position for the past several billion years.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm

[daz]

Haven't they got some stunning images of Saturn and it's moons?

Whenever I think of other planets outside of our own solar system, I always imagine them to be Saturn-like. Dunno why, but it seems that Saturn is a 'proper' planet!!

[FLO]

Dunno why, but it seems that Saturn is a 'proper' planet!!

Personally, I find the ones with terra-firma more interesting - like Mars.

Steve

[Rob]

I think Saturn has something special because of its rings, however Mars is my fave!!

Rob