Explanation:
What created the Great Rift on Saturn's moon Tethys?
No one is sure.
More formally named
Ithaca Chasma,
the long canyon running across the right of the
above image
extends about 2,000 kilometers long and spreads as much as 100 kilometers wide.
The above image
was captured by the Saturn-orbiting robotic
Cassini spacecraft
as it zoomed by the icy moon last month.
Hypotheses for the
formation of Ithaca Chasma include cracking of
Tethy's outer crust
as the moon cooled long ago, and that somehow the rift is related to the huge
Great Basin
impact crater named
Odysseus,
visible elsewhere on the unusual moon.
Cassini has now been orbiting
Saturn
for about four years and is scheduled to continue to probe and
photograph Saturn for at least two more years.
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