CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Rebounded Craters

Rebounded Craters
PIA 09821
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   Cassini surveys the southern hemisphere on Dione's anti-Saturn side, spying a broad impact basin near bottom.

Most of the medium-sized craters visible here have pointed central peaks, owing to the rebound of material following the craters' initial formation.

North on Dione (1,123 kilometers, 698 miles across) is up.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 19, 2007. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 240,000 kilometers (149,000 miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 44 degrees. Image scale is 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Released: January 23, 2008 (PIA 09821)
Image/Caption Information


Alliance Member Comments
Mercury_3488 (Feb 3, 2008 at 3:01 PM):
I suspect that Dione had a 'mantle' of softer ice beneath a harder ice crust at some point.

I suspect that for much of Dione's existence, there was cryovolcanism. I suspect the way the basin rebounded, was due to cryomagmas
filling in the void & that the 'mountains' are compressional features from the refreezing of the basin.

It would be very interesting to get a close pass above this feature & see if flow like features exist in the basin.

I suspect they do. The general profile of the surface within the basin, does seem smoother than the surrounding area, rather more like
the smoother areas of Dione.
Richard F (Jan 26, 2008 at 11:23 AM):
In the images presented there is 1 called Detached Haze 25 JAN 2008. About 1/4 the way down the photo,(From top) and just off the Rt side there is a small dot. It looks to be in the for ground, not the back ground as in a shadow. Anyone know what it is?
Red_dragon (Jan 25, 2008 at 3:52 PM):
Fantastic image. That huge southern basin is interesting; it seems to have a size similar to Odyseeus in Tethys, yet is not "sank" on the moon as that and it SEEMS to have an inner ring of mountains.