10 Things: Unsolved Mysteries of Saturn's Moons – NASA Solar System Exploration

10 Things: Unsolved Mysteries of Saturn's Moons – NASA Solar System Exploration





Saturn's icy moon Dione floats in front of the giant planet in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 22, 2005. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute | › Full image and caption

FEATURE | May 28, 2019

There’s way more to Saturn than its majestic rings. The planet also boasts a collection of 62 exotic moons. Titan — a giant, icy world bigger than our Moon — is known for its dense, hazy atmosphere and methane seas. There’s also Enceladus, a bright, white ice ball with a liquid-water ocean wrapped inside its frozen shell, that continuously erupts as a towering water plume through cracks near its south pole. Saturn’s moon Pan, nestled in the planet’s rings, is known for looking like a ravioli, and Janus looks something like a meatball. Cassini scientists even spotted an object orbiting inside the rings, nicknamed Peggy, that might have been a moon in the act of forming or disintegrating.