Starship Asterisk*

that's what hyperion looks like it's made of.
like solid "rock foam".

I think we discussed Hyperion once before. It is probably a captured comet; notice that the craters look like they may be vents.
Orin

Has anyone noticed this? On the picture of Hyperion for the 28th of January (or any picture for that matter!), there seems to be the shape of a much larger crater covering nearly the whole face of the body. The crater edge (or rim) is comprised of the very light egg-shaped band running from the top to the bottom almost along the edge of the body. There also seems to be a well-rounded and slightly flattened central peak. I'm quite open to the fact that this might be an optical illusion or human perception or something.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070128.html Link!
Orin

Read carefully the paragraph below the image. I just love it when the scientists are left
scratching their , , , heads.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070128.html

Now what are the odds of any object in our solar system having that many craters?
Especially a so called "moon" of Saturn? "Might house a vast system of caverns"? Like
the sections of the IST maybe? I and many others think this may be a destroyed space
construct. What say you?

Norval

I think you might be jumping the gun a little on that one

I don't see any features that suggest it was made for a purpose.

Hollowed out, maybe... but that wouldn't explain the craters...

Looks to me more like a chunk of rock that got caught up in a very turbulent part of the system's past and made it into orbit

It's a beautiful image.

It seems pretty clear to me that the part facing the camera has taken a HUGE impact, and the whole side of Hyperion has collapsed (or been pushed in) as a result. I wonder if the other side appears blown out.

Definitely a satellite with more holes than swiss cheese!

-Noel

It sort of has the appearance of the kind of crystals I would find as a kid near the riverbed in the dirt. A low quality quartz of some kind maybe, I never did know, or gypsum!

It looks to my eye that the deep craters with very steep sidewalls, are the result of high velocity impact of very small objects. Hyperion was caught in a storm of high velocity small objects,, shotgunned if you will !

There is a stepdown area in the central region, yes, with a small volcano structure in the middle, or that is the rebound from the large impact in the center of the crater.

Like a comet body that is covered in a deep layer of ice of some kind, shotgunned by high velocity small objects and left for dead to orbit Saturn.

The highly chaotic rotation indicates the center of mass is off-center to the diameter? That may indicate a void inside, or a density imbalance, and that indicates it could be an accumulation of debris, like one big chunk of iron meteorite and the rest stoney or icey material. Or a stoney and the rest icy material. Or whatever impacted and left the big crater in the center of the photo and was captured by Hyperion, is now what is causing the mass imbalance, added to the void on the viewing side we see.

kovil wrote:It sort of has the appearance of the kind of crystals I would find as a kid near the riverbed in the dirt. A low quality quartz of some kind maybe, I never did know, or gypsum!

It looks to my eye that the deep craters with very steep sidewalls, are the result of high velocity impact of very small objects. Hyperion was caught in a storm of high velocity small objects,, shotgunned if you will !

There is a stepdown area in the central region, yes, with a small volcano structure in the middle, or that is the rebound from the large impact in the center of the crater.

Like a comet body that is covered in a deep layer of ice of some kind, shotgunned by high velocity small objects and left for dead to orbit Saturn.

The highly chaotic rotation indicates the center of mass is off-center to the diameter? That may indicate a void inside, or a density imbalance, and that indicates it could be an accumulation of debris, like one big chunk of iron meteorite and the rest stoney or icey material. Or a stoney and the rest icy material. Or whatever impacted and left the big crater in the center of the photo and was captured by Hyperion, is now what is causing the mass imbalance, added to the void on the viewing side we see.

I was thinking that it looked like a piece of knapped flint, like arrow or spear heads that you see in museums.
Flint is very hard and as a result is also quite brittle and impacts made on it can cause thin slivers to fly off, leaving sharp edges and concave depressions. It looks to be covered with these in places.
Of course I'm not saying that Hyperion is made of flint! But it may be quite brittle.

Have a look at these knapped flint spearheads and see what I mean:

http://flintknapping.com/3HORNS.jpg

Hyperion has all the earmarks of being an artificial construct, low density, octahedral oblate spheroid shape. Reminds me of other artificial constructs. Phobos for example, and the research done by Isoef Shmuelovich Shklovskii that was substantiated by the Mars Express (JPL) MRSC/SRC investigative teams.

To me, the Hyperion craters appear to be Out Gassing Vents as one might expect to see on a comet. The vent should naturally resemble a funnel shape like the nozzle of a rocket engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Soyu ... ngines.jpg As the gas is forced out of the vent it expands causing the nozzle apperance like the back of the Soyuz Rocket. this would be the most efficient form to take given how the energy is applied in an outgassing event.

Hello All

This is the same image as in Oct 2005.

It is a beutiful moon.

I think the contrast and natural lines in this picture are somewhat deceiving, making the craters appear deeper than they really are. The shadowed crater floors make some look really deep. Also, the lines along the edges of the huge frontal depression (which suggest to me material knocked down the slopes from later impacts) play tricks with my eyes, too.

If you look at this closeup, taking by Cassini from only 500km away, its features look much more natural, although the incredible number of craters continues to astound. It definitely looks like it flew through quite a bit of stuff during its life.

Hyperion closeup

I believe the dark at the bottom of many of the craters are holes from material venting out as would be expected from a comet as it heats up in it's journey around the sun. That is why I believe Hyperion is a captured comet.
Orin

Also, The many small craters could be caused by return orbits through its own debris field as comets might be expected to do.

orin stepanek wrote:I believe the dark at the bottom of many of the craters are holes from material venting out as would be expected from a comet as it heats up in it's journey around the sun. That is why I believe Hyperion is a captured comet.
Orin

Well, I personally can't rule that out, but the craters are pretty big. Many of them kilometers across. That would be a pretty major outgassing event. Water turning to vapor from solar heating kilometers under the surface.

I personally think it's more likely that they're all genuine impact features, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of Hyperion being a captured comet, especially given it's low density. The big depression could be from a major impact that initially drove it into the proximity with Saturn.

I wonder if the great number of craters could be the result of Hyperion being around during the formation of Saturn's rings.

Hyperion kind of reminds me of a sunflower head with most of the seeds fallen out.
Orin

iamlucky13 wrote:
Hyperion closeup

Could you please give the link to the page with the write-up on this image, I don't think it is Hyperion.

That is, indeed, Hyperion!

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics ... n_015.html

Also:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i ... geID=50346

Absolutely outstanding closeup !!!!!

It takes the illusion right out of the picture. Clicking the + view is such a shocker !! Now we see Hyperion in its trueness. A land of Moon like material, the bright white luster is the glass beads from impact vaporization congealing to form glass beads like hiway paint uses to reflect sunlight back to the direction of incidence, from the headlights of passing motorists and spacecraft.

The craters are black in shadow, looking like carbon deposits before in the long range view. The steep sides show dust and landslide like sand dunes, under low gravity, making very steep angles, more than under earth grav.

It's truly a matter of perspective !!

ps, there is a crater 28% down from the scroll starting at the top of the photo,
and 35% to the right from starting at the left of the photo,
which appears to have the blackness at the bottom, not a result of the shadow effect, unlike most all other of the craters. I'm not sure how to bookmark that area of the photo and paste it into a specific screenshot.
It looks like there is a substrata of dark material. Making Hyperion look like a dark object covered in 2-3 miles thick (maybe more like 10-20 kilometers thick) ice of some kind, and maybe the ice crystals are making the light look like the 'glass bead effect'.

I have to admit that image is really brain-burning for me. I can't seem to stop my brain from interpreting the light and shadows the wrong way 'round.

To some these images leave all kinds of questions, some cant even grasp their true implications. These images have given me all kinds of answers. They have given me the truth of what really happend and why.

Rant on folks,

Norval

Qev wrote:http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i ... geID=50346

Thanks Qev. That's where I found the original. Also, here's an intermediate range and angle shot of the surface. It gives an impression in between the sponginess of the APOD and "moon-ness" of the head-on shot. Foreshortening due to the camera zoom can make some features look distorted at different angles. Contrast and brightness enhancements can also play tricks with the eyes.

Kovil, the APOD caption does mention "At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark material." I think a lot of what we see on the global image of Hyperion is shadow, but taking a closer look we can distinguish between shadow and material darkness more easily.

I think your strata idea is probably the best guess. Over so many years of violent impacts, a lot of dust and fine rock would be kicked up, basically creating sedimentary layers.

iamlucky13,
It looks to me like the area shown in the original picture http://www.planetary.org/image/N00040378.jpg you posted that FieryIce was questioning is located in the upper right corner of the picture
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07741 you have just linked

I think yer right there BMA.

And it is not shadows causing the black on the bottoms, that is for sure.

Norval