Dione’s Icy Mystery The Sidera Lodoicea are four of Saturn’s moons discovered by G
Dione’s Icy Mystery The Sidera Lodoicea are four of Saturn’s moons discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini at the Paris Observatory. Sidera Lodoicea translates to Louisian Stars, named in honor of King Louis XIV of France. One of the moons, Dione, has interesting thin, white bands on its surface that are highly reflective. When first photographed by Voyager, it was hypothesized that Dione was geologically active, possibly from cryovolcanism, or ice volcanoes, causing surface cracks to erupt. Closeup images of Dione from Cassini proved that hypothesis wrong and revealed that these features are actually cliffs of ice created by tectonic fractures. Image: Dione’s ice cliffs seen from Cassini. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute) -- source link
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