Pan - Saturn's unusual month

It gives the impression that it is an almost spherical body and around it a kind of ring attached to it. The body is bright, the surface is flat and there are a few craters measuring tens of meters at most. In its right part there is a network of grooves almost to its full width

Haim Mazar

Pan, another of Saturn's moons, is 26 km long, like Phobos, a moon of Mars. orbits Saturn within a gap in the rings.

Its distance from Saturn is 133,584 km and it orbits it once in 0.57 Earth days. Saturn's aspect is always one sided. Its density is about 0.42. A few years ago a series of photographs of him were broadcast from the Cassini spacecraft and he looks like a big point of light. A few days ago, on March 7.3.2017, 24,572, another series of photographs was broadcast, this time from a very short distance of XNUMX km. The photographs are clear and detailed.

The photographs reveal a particularly strange moon that does not resemble any of the moons of Saturn, nor the moons of Jupiter photographed by the Galileo spacecraft, nor the moons of Mars, nor the asteroids photographed by other spacecraft. It is assumed that new measurements following this series of photographs will give more accurate measurements of it. Above all, its density is extremely low, which indicates that it is porous and may have large voids. A hypothesis - parts of it may be crunchy. The possibility that there is water in it must be accepted.

It gives the impression that it is an almost spherical body and around it a kind of ring attached to it. The body is bright, the surface is flat and there are a few craters measuring tens of meters at most. In its right part there is a network of grooves almost to its full width. Some of the grooves were oriented from left to right and their bottoms are dark. They are cut by two relatively wide and bright canyons. The rightmost one of them moves the full length of the month. In the left part there is a kind of very bright rectangle. Near the rectangle to its left is a relief that touches its left edge in a ring or whatever we call it. Strong reflection of sunlight. What looks like a ring with a smooth rim.

Examining the part of the ring on the left side of it gives the impression that it is actually the shell of a larger body with the inner part being the golf balls. This is a preliminary explanation. On the lower right you see a black rectangle. It is impossible to know what it is, maybe a tiny meteor hit that splashed this section. Additional photographs will allow a more global and detailed view.

Because of the anomaly of this month, Cassini should be considered for a passing within touching distance of it near the end of its activity this year.

מקור

"NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Reveals the Strange Shape of Saturn's Moon Pan

http://scitechdaily.com/nasas-cassini-spacecraft-reveals-the-strange-shape-of-saturns-moon-pan/