Key ideas: science 8

Over the Moon

1. Do you ever stare up at our moon and wonder about what it might be like to walk on its surface, jump in low gravity, or gaze over at Earth? Our moon has fascinated earthlings since the dawn of time. A moon is a celestial body that rotates around a planet. Earth only has one, but Saturn—the great ringed planet—boasts an exotic zoo of 62 moons, each with its own appearance and uniquities. Let’s take a voyage, like NASA’s Cassini spacecraft did from 1991 to 2017, to some of Saturn’s extraordinary moons.
2. Saturn’s moon called Pandora resembles a regular potato, while the moon named Prometheus looks more like a sweet potato. The moon Hyperion has the appearance of a sponge, while Janus looks kind of like a meatball. Epimetheus is gnarled and textured like a dirty ice ball. Hazy Titan is Saturn’s largest (and the solar system’s second-largest) moon. Other than Earth, Titan is the only celestial entity where liquid collects on its surface. Here, however, frigid temperatures have frozen this water solid.
3. Interestingly, scientists that studied the photographs that the Cassini spacecraft sent back to Earth discovered a plume near the moon Enceladus’s southern polar region that sprayed water vapor, icy particles, and simple organic materials into space. These jets, scientists determined, are the source material for one of Saturn’s rings. The dust from a different moon, Phoebe, birthed another of Saturn’s rings.
4. The moon Lapetus has one snow-white hemisphere and another that’s as dark as coal. The moon Mimas features the huge 86-mile-wide Herschel Crater. Similar to Earth, the moons Dione and Rhea are surrounded by an atmosphere, although theirs is 5 trillion times thinner than ours.
5. Nine of Saturn’s moons are unnamed. Also, in the future, more moons could be added to the current overall moon count. The Cassini spacecraft observed an object (unofficially named Peggy) in Saturn’s rings, which may be a moon forming or disintegrating.
6. Considering how Saturn has so many moons to pick from, where might you stake your flag?