Why is Saturn's small moon Telesto so smooth? Possibly Telesto is covered with a type of granular icy material similar to that suspected of covering Pandora , another of Saturn's small moons. If so, Telesto might be more like a pile of rubble than a solid body. This recently uncovered Solar System mystery is currently a topic of research, however. The unexpected finding originated last October when the robot Cassini spacecraft , currently orbiting Saturn , swooped past the 24-kilometer moon and captured the first ever image of Telesto's surface. Telesto orbits Saturn always just ahead of the much larger moon Tethys . Pictured above , Telesto's unusually smooth surface was found to show some large craters and boulders , but not the high density of craters found on nearby Tethys or most other Saturnian moons.
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Credit: Cassini Imaging Team , SSI , JPL , ESA , NASA