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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Phoebe

On the way to Saturn, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft has already taken breathtaking images of Pheobe, pockmarked with craters and displaying high cliffs.

The "Sourthern Pole" of Phoebe looks as if a gigantic piece was gouged out by a tremendous impact.

The Moon looks more like a captured asteroid.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Phoebe might be a captured Comet

I did think that the close up images of Phoebe looked more like an asteroid than a moon. This seems to verify my opinion.

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If this really is ice underneath, it fits in with what we saw of [comet] Halley's nucleus," says imaging team member Carl Murray of Queen Mary, University of London.

The images back the theory that Phoebe probably formed in the chilly outer Solar System, perhaps in a reservoir of comets beyond Neptune called the Kuiper belt, and was later captured by Saturn. "This may be our first encounter with a Kuiper belt object," says Murray

(Courtesy of NewScientist.com)

[NatureDevil]

Yeah, there are several moons that are all weird shaped like that.

One that I remember, I believe it is named Miranda of Uranus, has a huge crater in it that makes it look like the death star. It is still round though elsewhere.

It is because of this moon that I think twice about sizeasble comets and asteroids and meteors hitting planets, because if one indeed hit Miranda, it left a BIG mark.

People say that the point of contact on Earth would have been where the Pacific Ocean currently lies.

Possible.

NatureDevil

[stargazer]

There have been many theories of what happened that I dont really think anyone knows for sure what really happened. As for the ocean there really isnt a way to know for sure.

Becky

[NatureDevil]

hehehehe....

.....as I have stated before, that is one of the reasons why I love astronomy....no one knows any answers.....

NatureDevil

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

NASA Scientists Discover Pluto Kin is a Member of Saturn Family

Saturn's battered little moon Phoebe is an interloper to the Saturn system from the deep outer solar system, scientists have concluded. The new findings appear in the May 5 issue of the journal Nature.

"Phoebe was left behind from the solar nebula, the cloud of interstellar gas and dust from which the planets formed," said Dr. Torrence Johnson, Cassini imaging team member at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It did not form at Saturn. It was captured by Saturn's gravitational field and has been waiting eons for Cassini to come along."

Cassini flew by Phoebe on its way to Saturn on June 11, 2004. Little was known about Phoebe at that time. During the encounter, scientists got the first detailed look at Phoebe, which allowed them to determine its makeup and mass. With the new information they have concluded that it has an outer solar system origin, akin to Pluto and other members of the Kuiper Belt.

More here from SpaceRef.com: www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=16850

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It does look rather like a piece of debris, but the Kuiper belt is being used too frequently as the answer to mysteries.