Stunning Close-up of Saturn's Moon, Pan, Reveals a Space Empanada (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: Astronomers have long known that Pan, one of Saturn's innermost moons, has an odd look. Based on images taken from a distance, researchers have said it looks like a walnut or a flying saucer. But now, NASA's Cassini probe has delivered stunning close-ups of the 35-kilometer-wide icy moon, and it might be better called a pan-fried dumpling or an empanada. Pan orbits Saturn in a gap in the planet's rings and pulls material from them, so the ridge around it likely started accumulating soon after the moon formed, researchers say. If material in the ridge is still loose, rather than somehow fused together, the ridge can maintain its steepness only because the moon's gravity is so low. The latest pictures were obtained as Cassini conducts its final (and riskiest) flybys past Saturn's moons and rings before it blazes into the planet's atmosphere later this year.

Comments

Re:Render

[Rei]

It's incredibly smooth and uncratered because it's constantly accumulating fine-grained ring material. Think of it like a sand dune in space.

Also, people are generally used to images of the outer planets and their moons being poor quality (grainy, uneven lighting, often colorized poorly), but Cassini's imaging science subsystem is excellent. Really, everything about this spacecraft and mission has been superb, it's going to be such a shame to see it go. A very expensive mission, but worth every bit.

Re: Render

[Jesus H Rolle]

Saturn's 9.5 au from the sun, so gets 1/9.5^2 = ~1.1% the light we do. It's dark out there. This makes for low quality photos.

Here is a better link with the originals and a link to katrillions of raw images.

Re:Render

[Rei]

Everything in space is taken from "a long way away" relative to what we're used to in our everyday lives, as spacecraft move at speeds generally best measured in kilometers per second.

Hmm, I think I see the problem. You're expecting images that look like when they take photos of much larger bodies - for example, this also recent image, of Mimas. But Mimas is about 400 kilometers in diameter, while Pan is 35x23km. Pan is also in Saturn's A-ring, which makes it a dangerous place to approach (although I assume this was captured during a pass through the Encke Gap?). Let's see... these were taken from ~25000km away... so yeah, that'd have to be within the Encke gap.