Saturn’s moon Atlas is said to look like a flying saucer. The Cassini probe took a close look on its way to Titan, whizzing 7,000km from the tiny world. To me it looks like one of those soft, dusty banana-flavored chews you get in the very cheapest candy bags.
These raw, unprocessed images of Saturn’s moon, Atlas, were taken on April 12, 2017, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The flyby had a close-approach distance of about 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers).
These images are the closest ever taken of Atlas and will help to characterize its shape and geology. Atlas (19 miles, or 30 kilometers across) orbits Saturn just outside the A ring — the outermost of the planet’s bright, main rings.
Here’s the full animation, from NASA:
