Battered Tethys
| published June 17, 2015 |
By Keith H. Roberts Thursday Review staff
Tethys, which is 660 miles in diameter, is one of the many moons of Saturn, and its surface shows the battered, pockmarked appearance typical of moons in our solar system. But Tethys also demonstrates that its craters can sometimes give us evidence of incredibly powerful and violent events from the distant past, including this view which clearly shows the massive crater Odysseus, visible on the right face of this small moon.
The crater is more than 280 miles across, covers roughly 18 percent of the total surface Tethys, and indicates a violent encounter with an object of enormous size and substantial density. This image was captured using available light by the cameras aboard the spacecraft Cassini, and was taken from the relatively close distance of 118,000 miles.
Cassini is a joint space exploration venture of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ISA).
Related Thursday Review articles:
Youthful Martian Crater; Keith H. Roberts; Thursday Review; June 10, 2015.
Saturn's Outward Calm; Thursday Review staff; Thursday Review; May 18, 2015.