My Assistant
Saturnian Moon Identification, How to tell one moon from another? |
Oct 6 2005, 02:57 PM
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Most of Saturn's nine largest moons have some characteristic that distinguishes them from the others, by which I can more or less instantly recognize them when I see their images:
Titan is big, orange, and smoggy Iapetus is pied black and white, with an immense crater, irregular shape, and that wacky equatorial ridge (almost too many weirdnesses for one moon!) Enceladus is small, icy, and smooth like a spherical hockey rink, with those warm antarctic catscratches Mimas is small, bumpy, egg-round, with a really big crater Hyperion is irregular and pocked full of medium-sized black-bottomed holes Phoebe is potato-shaped with a less dense pocking of conical craters, plus a few larger ones But the three I still have a lot of trouble distinguishing are Rhea, Dione, and Tethys. I know Rhea is considerably larger, but the scale difference isn't enough to make it a lot less lumpy than the other two, so that doesn't help much. What distinguishing marks should I look for to be able to easily differentiate these three moons? |
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David Saturnian Moon Identification Oct 6 2005, 02:57 PM
Bjorn Jonsson Tethys: Ithaca Chasma and the huge Odysseus crater... Oct 6 2005, 04:58 PM
Jyril Rhea is hardest to identify, since it lacks promin... Oct 6 2005, 05:23 PM
volcanopele Tethys: smaller than Rhea, rugged terrain, Odysseu... Oct 6 2005, 05:32 PM
ljk4-1 That Cassini probe sure knows a photo op when it s... Nov 11 2005, 02:55 PM
ljk4-1 MOONS IN PERSPECTIVE
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Two of... Jan 25 2006, 05:22 PM
ljk4-1 Three moons, quite artistic/epic:
http://saturn.j... Jan 30 2006, 06:39 PM![]() ![]() |
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