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Looks like it's time for a new cratering model

hyperion, with craters

This Cassini shot of Hyperion shows a crater with a bit of rock attached to it. How one could get an impact crater that big is a bit of a mystery, and I don’t know about you but I’m having trouble imagining something as small as Hyperion (≅150km across and massing a “mere” 800 US-trillion tonnes) having a volcanic or gas-ejection creater at all, let alone a crater 2/3 of the size of the whole show.

Looking forward to the official explanation for this one with ’bated breath, it’s gunner be a doozie! The explanation for the rest of Hyperion’s amazing cratering is going to be pretty special all by itself.

The image has had the colours tweaked to show variation on in the surface material. IRL Hyperion is considerably redder (I’m sure the busy little vegemites at NASA, ESA etc will gives a better true-to-life colour image sometime in the next few days).

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