Saturn's big walls
Jun 16, 2004 16: 56 EST
ESA, the European Space Agency, just delivered the sharpest images ever taken from Saturn's moon Phoebe.
The wall in the picture is around 10 000 meters high, and believed to be covered in ice. Compare to Mount Everest 8848 meters, or the Everest North Wall at around 3000 meters.
Saturn is the sixth planet in our solar system, and very cold - only Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are farther away from the sun.
Writes ESA:
"Images like this one, showing bright 'wispy' streaks thought to be ice revealed by subsidence of crater walls, are leading to the view that Phoebe is an icy-rich body overlain with a thin layer of dark material.
The slopes from the rim down to the ‘hummocky’ floor are approximately 20 kilometers long; many of the bright streamers on the crater wall are on the order of 10 kilometers long.
This image was obtained with an angle of 78 degrees between the Sun, Phoebe and the spacecraft, from a distance of 11 918 kilometers. The image scale is approximately 70 meters per pixel."
|
|
Feature Stories |
|
Latest News |
more news |
 |
Everest Supercouloir: "What is a summit compared to a friend's lif
Full Story
|
 |
Mystery Chopper's Utopia summit - VIDEO
Full Story
|
 |
Annapurna South: "It was such a great climb"
Full Story
|
 |
ExWeb Special report: The Ropes and Summit Push on Everest...
Full Story
|
 |
Real men
Full Story
|
 |
Christian Kuntner - a mountaineering legend is gone
Full Story
|
 |
14 x 8000: Ed Viesturs joins the world's most exclusive...
Full Story
|
 |
ExWeb Special: Ed Viesturs "I still have peaks that I want...
Full Story
|
|
|
| Andrew Lock on Annapurna tragedy: "I wanted to keep on climbing" Jun 6, 2005 | | Gabriel Filippi and Sean Egan's soul, together on the summit of Everest Jun 6, 2005 | | "Supermom" Monica Kalozdi update: Everest Summit and hard descent Jun 5, 2005 | | Robert Milne dies during summit push Everest South Jun 5, 2005 | | Grania Willis summits Everest this morning Jun 5, 2005 | | ExplorersWeb Week-In-Review Jun 5, 2005 | | Himex summit - Update from climber Jun 4, 2005 | | No Mountain top too high, my Love Jun 4, 2005 | | Jagged Globe team summits again! Jun 4, 2005 | | More summits for DCXP/Project Himalaya this morning Jun 4, 2005 |
| | End of season... Jun 4, 2005 | | Ranulph Fiennes turns back on Everest Jun 3, 2005 |
|
|
