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Can you guess what this dumpling-like object is? Hint: It’s from out of this world
“Ravioli, pierogi, empanada... What do you see?” Nasa wrote as they shared a picture of a dumpling-like object.
NASA took to Instagram to share a picture that shows an uncanny resemblance of a celestial body to dumplings. The American space agency asked netizens what they think is shown in the picture. Turns out, the object captured by the Cassini spacecraft is the innermost moon of Saturn called Pan.
“Ravioli, pierogi, empanada... What do you see? No wrong answers,” NASA wrote as they posted the photo that shows Pan from two different angles. The space agency shared more about this moon in their caption.
“Pan, the innermost of Saturn’s known moons, orbits the planet from inside a gap in one of Saturn's rings. It completes an orbit every 13.8 hours at an altitude of 83,000 miles (134,000 km),” they wrote on Instagram.
“The ridge around Pan's equator is similar to Saturn’s moon Atlas, and gives the moon its distinctive dumpling shape,” they added.
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NASA added that the moon was first discovered by MR Showalter in 1990 using the images taken by Voyager 2 spacecraft. These recent images of Pan were captured by the Cassini spacecraft while passing within 15,300 miles (24,600 km) of the moon. It is also the spacecraft's closest encounter with Pan.
The space agency concluded the post with a description of the image. “Two black-and-white images of Saturn’s moon, Pan. The two images are taken from different perspectives: the image on the left appears to be taken from above the moon, while the image on the right seems to be taken from below it. The moon has a flat ridge around its midpoint, and lines that look like they were scraped across its surface,” reads the description.
Check out NASA’s interesting post about Saturn’s moon Pan here:
The post was shared eight hours ago. Since then, the post has accumulated more than 2.3 lakh likes. The share has also prompted people to post varied comments.
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“A macaron with the cream squishing out,” joked an Instagram user. “That's tortellini,” joined another. “That’s clearly the space creature from Star Trek TNG that was draining energy from their ship and they helped it become born,” added a third. “Frying pan and pancake,” wrote a fourth.
