Astronomy Picture of the Day, 6-8-03

Astronomy Picture of the Day website ^ | 06/08/03 | Astronomy Picture of the Day

[ThinkPlease]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2003 June 8

Rhea: Saturn's Second Largest Moon
Credit: Voyager, NASA; Copyright: Calvin J. Hamilton

Explanation: Rhea is the second largest moon of Saturn, behind Titan, and the largest without an atmosphere.

It is composed mostly of water ice, but has a small rocky core.

Rhea's rotation and orbit are locked together (just like Earth's Moon) so that one side always faces Saturn.

A consequence of this is that one side always leads the other.

Rhea's leading surface is much more heavily cratered than its trailing surface.

The above photograph was taken with the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1980.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is currently on route to Saturn and will arrive in 2004.

[ThinkPlease]

Here's today's APOD. No one else was doing it, so I thought I'd try posting once to see if it worked. I don't have the time to do it with the panache that petuniaseven does, but here's worth trying. ;-)

[petuniasevan]

Thanks. Don't know what happened to unix.

[petuniasevan]

Belated

[RightWhale]

It is composed mostly of water ice

You picked a good one.

[farmfriend]

June 6, 7 and 9 didn't get posted. They are great ones.

[firewalk]

Thanks for the ping
& for putting up the thread

[sistergoldenhair]

Thanks for posting APOD and for the ping.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Great pic - thanks for the ping.