Farewell Hyperion! Saturn's bizarre 'sponge moon' is captured for the final time by Nasa's Cassini
Channel: Aliens insider
Date: 2015-06-29

Farewell Hyperion! Saturn's bizarre 'sponge moon' is captured for the final time by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3109026/Farewell-Hyperion-Saturn-s-bizarre-sponge-moon-captured-final-time-Nasa-s-Cassini-spacecraft.html

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Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has captured its last images of Saturn's strange moon Hyperion - the last new images we'll see of it for many years.

Hyperion is fascinating for its potato-like appearance and surface covered in craters.

But it is even more odd owing to its composition which is less dense than ice and with pools of hydrocarbons at the bottom of its holes.

The Cassini spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004, flew past Hyperion at a distance of about 21,000 miles (34,000km) on 31 May.

The moon, Saturn's eighth largest, orbits about 920,000 miles (1.48 million kilometres) from the gas giant, much further out than Cassini usually orbits. 

So the spacecraft has only had a few chances to observe the moon - with its closest flyby coming on 26 September 2005, when it flew to a distance of 314 miles (505km).