The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released previously unseen images of one of Saturn’s moons, comparing them to well-known foods.
“Ravioli, pierogi, and empanada… What do you notice? “There are no wrong answers,” NASA wrote on its Instagram account Monday, with images of Pan, Saturn’s innermost moon.
The images, acquired by the Cassini spacecraft, provide a new degree of detail on the peculiar moon.
According to the space agency, Pan’s ridge along the equator is comparable to Atlas, another moon that surrounds Saturn. According to NASA, this ridge gives Pan its distinctive “dumpling” shape.
According to the post, Pan orbits Saturn from within a break in one of the planet’s rings, making a round around the planet every 13.8 hours at an altitude of 83,000 miles.
The two photographs show how the Cassini spacecraft’s perspective of Pan altered as it approached the moon at a distance of 15,300 miles, the craft’s closest visit with Pan to date.
M.R. Showalter identified Pan “using images taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft nine years earlier,” according to a NASA website page about the moon.
According to Space.com, Saturn presently has 145 moons recognized by the International Astronomical Union.
This number increased dramatically in May of this year when a team of scientists led by Edward Ashton identified 62 new moons.
According to NASA, while most of Saturn’s moons were originally named after Greco-Roman Titans, the discovery of many additional moons pushed scientists to begin choosing names from other mythologies such as Gallic, Inuit, and Norse myths.
“Pan, a satyr (a creature resembling a man with the hind legs and hooves of a goat), is a Greek god of nature and the forest,” according to NASA’s website.
