Thursday, July 21, 2005

Spongy-looking Hyperion tumbles into Cassini's view

"The moon's spongy-looking exterior is an interesting coincidence, as much of Hyperion's interior appears to consist of voids. Hyperion is close to the size limit where, like a child compacting a snowball, internal pressure due to the moon's own gravity will begin to crush weak materials like ice, closing pore spaces and eventually creating a more nearly spherical shape."

An alert reader sent me the above article. Of course, there are those (I won't name any names) who might suggest that the spongy-looking exterior is anything but an "interesting coincidence" and that Hyperion is in fact artificial.

2 comments:

W.M. Bear said...

Mac -- What I found especially interesting was the statement that most of the interior is empty space. That suggests to me at least the possibility of its being an asteroid that was deliberately hollowed out. It would be interesting to compare the densities of other bodies the same size. I'm willing to bet there aren't many (if any at all).

Mac said...

The Saturnian system is definitely one weird place...