The Cassini spacecraft passed by Saturn’s spongy-looking moon Hyperion yesterday, August 25, and returned some very dramatic images like the one seen here – fascinating! At 15,000 miles this was Cassini’s second-closest approach to Hyperion.

It will pass by again on September 16 at just over twice that distance. The closest it has come to Hyperion was 310 miles on September 26, 2005.

The heavily cratered Hyperion is about 168 miles wide. It resides in an orbit between Titan and Iapetus, and is Saturn’s largest irregularly-shaped moon… in fact, the largest such moon in the solar system.

Image has been rotated 180º and adjusted to enhance detail from the original raw image.

Read the NASA news release here.

Credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute. Edited by J. Major.