Saturn has a tiny moon shaped like a dumpling, and I want to eat it right now
There are certain things that you learn in a newsroom when the space reporter is away on vacation. One of them is that Saturn has a tiny moon shaped like a dumpling.
The moon, Atlas, is just 19 miles across, and orbits the large planet outside of its "A ring" -- the outermost of the planet's main rings, NASA said.
On April 12, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took these pictures of the celestial dumpling, er, I mean moon, Atlas.
The spacecraft whizzed by the moon at a distance of about 7,000 miles, making these the closest pictures ever taken of Atlas. Scientists hope the images will help them better understand the moon's shape and geology.
In addition to the still images, NASA released an animation of the flyby, which just makes me even hungrier.
Andrew Freedman is Mashable's Senior Editor for Science and Special Projects. Prior to working at Mashable, Freedman was a Senior Science writer for Climate Central. He has also worked as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly and Greenwire/E&E Daily. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, online at The Weather Channel, and washingtonpost.com, where he wrote a weekly climate science column for the "Capital Weather Gang" blog. He has provided commentary on climate science and policy for Sky News, CBC Radio, NPR, Al Jazeera, Sirius XM Radio, PBS NewsHour, and other national and international outlets. He holds a Masters in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
