Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/10/5356.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/10/5357.gif?resize=300%2C121&ssl=1)
Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up
From man to the Sun’s God: yet unsecure.
—John Keats (1795–1821), Hyperion
When the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft swung within 500 kilometers of Saturn’s moon Hyperion last month, it snapped close-up photos that revealed a spectacularly cratered, craggy, splintered pile of rubble. With its spongy look, it bore little resemblance to any other satellite of Saturn.