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Beautiful Pandora (false colors)
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Cassini's best close-up view of Saturn's F-Ring shepherd moon, Pandora, shows that this small ring-moon is coated in fine dust-sized icy material.
Craters formed on this object by impacts appear to be covered by debris, a process that probably happens rapidly in a geologic sense. The grooves and small ridges on Pandora suggest that fractures affect the overlying smooth material. The crisp craters on another Saturn moon, Hyperion, provide a contrasting example of craters on a small object.
Cassini acquired infrared, green and ultraviolet images on Sept. 5, 2005, which were combined to create this false-color view. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approx. 52.000 Km from Pandora and at a phase angle of 54°. Resolution in the original image was about 300 mt per pixel".
Nota: un'immagine stupenda e spettacolare e poi, per i più attenti, come non notare l'incredibile somiglianza (troppo grande per essere casuale...) di questa luna con Phobos?
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