NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Stunning close-up of Saturn’s moon, Pan, reveals a space empanada

Astronomers have long known that Pan, one of Saturn’s innermost moons, has an odd look. Based on images taken from a distance, researchers have said it looks like a walnut or a flying saucer. But now, NASA’s Cassini probe has delivered stunning close-ups of the 35-kilometer-wide icy moon, and it might be better called a pan-fried dumpling or an empanada. Pan orbits Saturn in a gap in the planet’s rings and pulls material from them, so the ridge around it likely started accumulating soon after the moon formed, researchers say. The new images are only hours old, so scientists haven’t yet had time to estimate how wide and tall the ridge is. If material in the ridge is still loose, rather than somehow fused together, the ridge can maintain its steepness only because the moon’s gravity is so low. The latest pictures were obtained as Cassini conducts its final (and riskiest) flybys past Saturn’s moons and rings before it blazes into the planet’s atmosphere later this year.