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APOD
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.
Janus: Potato Shaped Moon of Saturn
Explanation: 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.
| Date | November 7, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit: CICLOPS , JPL , ESA , NASA |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |