Cassini Probe Passes Within 2000 Miles Of Saturn Moon

NASA's Cassini-Huygen probe Friday made a close fly-by of Saturn's moon, Phoebe, on its way to a rendezvous with the ringed planet and a chance to make history.

Friday's close encounter with Phoebe brought the Cassini probe to within 2,000 kilometers (1243 miles) of the odd moon, which circles the ringed gas giant in the opposite direction of its sister moons. That makes astronomers believe Phoebe was once an asteroid or comet, snared by Saturn's gravitational pull.

"We are prepared to be surprised," said Dale Cruikshank, a Cassini mission scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. "This odd moon of Saturn has a little ice and a lot of black material on its surface, but beyond that we know very little."

Cassini's plethora of photos taken during the Phoebe fly-by seem to indicate areas of carbon concentrated on the surface. There are also surprising concentrations of water on the moon's surface.

Cassini-Huygen is set to enter orbit around Saturn on June 30th -- a hair-raising feet that calls for threading the rings that encircle Saturn. Cassini will orbit the planet inside the rings.

FMI: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm