Janus: Potato Shaped Moon of Saturn

Astronomy Picture of the Day · 2006-11-07 · NASA (public domain)

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Janus: Potato Shaped Moon of Saturn — APOD for 2006-11-07

Janus is one of the stranger moons of Saturn. First, Janus travels in an unusual orbit around Saturn where it periodically trades places with its sister moon Epimetheus , which typically orbits about 50 kilometers away. Janus , although slightly larger than Epimetheus , is potato -shaped and has a largest diameter of about 190 kilometers. Next, Janus is covered with large craters but strangely appears to lack small craters. One possible reason for this is a fine dust that might cover the small moon, a surface also hypothesized for Pandora and Telesto . Pictured above , Janus was captured in front of the cloud tops of Saturn in late September.

Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2006-11-07 — image & explanation courtesy of NASA (public domain), mirrored at Tukuk-OS for reading and search convenience.

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