Phoebe

Saturns weirdest moon

June 2004 -

The Cassini-Huygens saturnprobe
makes a close fly-by of Saturns small
but quite mysterious moon.

Phoebe is untypical in several ways:

It is one of the outermost satellites.

It is also very dark (reflects only 6% light)
while most of Saturn's moons are bright.

It revolves on a rather elongated orbit.

Furthermore, it's revolution is retrograd.

Perhaps Phoebe is not a native in the saturnian family..?
It could be a captured asteroid from the Mars-Jupiter belt.
Or a Kuiper-stray from the second belt beyond Neptune...

This images captured by Cassini-Huygens suggest
that there could be lots of ice beneath the dark surface.

Asteroids are rocks, but kuiper belt objects
are made of ice and rocks; the composition of comets...