Saturn's "Sponge" Moon Hyperion

Hit so many times it resembles a sponge

It's violent out there

Battered and bruised

Images courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASA

Saturn's "spongy" moon Hyperion shines in a new picture from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, snapped during a flyby on August 25. Cassini cruised past the irregularly shaped moon at a distance of some 15,500 miles (25,000 kilometers)—the craft's second closest encounter with this particular object.

"I think the most fascinating thing about Hyperion is that it is so battered at every level," said planetary scientist Bonnie Buratti of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Lots of moons have craters all over them, but Hyperion has so many big craters that must have almost broken it apart. It shows how much violent stuff does happen out there."