Saturn's Moon Dione Is Covered in Weird Stripes
By Meghan Bartels, Space.com Senior Writer | October 26, 2018 12:01pm ET
- click for image -
https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA4MC8yNzcvb3JpZ2luYWwvZGlvbmUtMjAxMi5qcGc=
Saturn's moon Dione as seen by the Cassini mission in 2012.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Scientists studying Saturn's moon Dione spotted weird stripes that they now believe could be caused by material falling onto the moon's surface.
The new research is based on data gathered by NASA's Cassini mission, which ended last fall. In photographs taken by the spacecraft before it was destroyed, a pair of scientists saw long, narrow, bright stripes across the surface of Dione — which looked eerily like similar features already identified on another of Saturn's moons, Rhea.
On Dione, they're weirdly parallel and look fairly young, and they're only found along the middle swath of the moon. "Their orientation, parallel to the equator, and linearity are unlike anything else we've seen in the solar system," co-author Alex Patthoff, a geologist at the Planetary Science Institute, a nonprofit research center, said in a statement released by the institution.
More:
https://www.space.com/42259-saturn-moon-dione-mysterious-stripes.html
