Saturnian moon Phoebe anamoly

1st time poster


THere are several anamolous aspects of Saturns moon Phoebe. I understand that it is considered a perfect sphere by astronomers in NASA circles with the data of Viking. It is VERy dark , almost non reflective, it is 4 times farted out in its orbitthan Saturns next closest moon, and it has a retrograde orbit. I have heard through several sources that there is some speculation that it is an artificial satellite and may be a huge " mother ship " of an alien race.

There are few sites on the internet with any data , I am appealing to all readers of Above Top Secret to help me gather all data , photos etc and learn just what it is exactly that orbits SAturn.

Thanks

external image

Phoebe (Phoebe ("FEE bee") is the outermost of Saturn's known satellites. Phoebe is almost 4 times more distant from Saturn than its nearest neighbor (Iapetus).

orbit: 12,952,000 km from Saturn
diameter: 220 km
mass: 4.0e18 kg
Phoebe is the daughter of Uranus and Gaia; grandmother of Apollo and Artemis.

Discovered by Pickering in 1898.

Most of Saturn's moons are bright but Phoebe's albedo is very low (.05), as dark as lampblack.

All of Saturn's moons except for Phoebe and Iapetus orbit very nearly in the plane of Saturn's equator. Phoebe's orbit is inclined almost 175° (its north pole is in the opposite direction to Saturn's).

Phoebe's eccentric, retrograde orbit and unusual albedo indicates that it may be a captured asteroid or Kuiper Belt object.

Phoebe is also unusual in that it does not rotate synchronously as do all the other moons of Saturn except Hyperion.

Material knocked off of Phoebe's surface by microscopic meteor impacts may be responsible for the dark surfaces of Hyperion and the leading hemisphere of Iapetus. )

www.nineplanets.org...

comparison to moon:

Viking was a martian probe, The planet was visted by Pioneer 11 which passed on September 1, 1979, at a distance of 21,000 km from Saturn's cloud tops and the two voyager probes Voyager 1 arrived on November 6th 1980,while Voyager 2 arrived mid summer 1981.

Phoebe Link

www.solarviews.com...



[Edited on 1-4-2004 by Argus]

HAHA sorry to point that out with big bold letters, but i found that highly amusing

But onto more serious matters. Where does it state that the moon is a perfect sphere. From what little i've read about the moon it's far from being a perfect sphere. More like some asteroid that got caught by Saturn and is now a satellite. The small image makes it appear to have a bumpy and rugged surface, but again it is a very small, blurry image.

jra... that's what everything i've read has said also.

and what about saturn's shepherd moons in the rings? they cause such things as braided rings. if anything, they're a lot more interesting than Phoebe.

EDIT: haha... on a reread i caught that it said viking. i must have saw the "v" and just assumed it said voyager... nice work popeye.

[Edited on 4/1/2004 by cmdrkeenkid]