NASA's Cassini captures Saturn's small moon 'Hyperion' orbiting the planet in chaotic manner (See pic)

Image credit: NASA

New Delhi: NASA has released yet another stunning image of one of Saturn's small moons captured by its Cassini spacecraft – and this time it's Hyperion.

The image that shows Hyperion orbiting the planet in a chaotic manner was captured by the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on August 22, 2016 in green light.

As per NASA, Hyperion's spin axis has a chaotic orientation in time, meaning that it is essentially impossible to predict how the moon will be spinning in the future.

So far, scientists only know of a few bodies with such chaotic spins.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 203,000 miles (326,000 kilometers) from Hyperion.

Hyperion was discovered in 1848 by American astrononers WC Bond, GP Bond and English astronomer William Lassell.

NASA's Cassini mission made its first close dive past the outer edges of Saturn's rings since beginning its penultimate mission phase on November 30. The spacecraft crossed through the plane of Saturn's rings on December 4 at 5:09 a.m. PST (8:09 a.m. EST) at a distance of approximately 57,000 miles above Saturn's cloud tops.

On September 15, 2017, the mission will conclude with a final plunge into Saturn's atmosphere when the spacecraft runs out of fuel for orbital corretions. During the plunge, Cassini will transmit data on the atmosphere's composition until its signal is lost.