Check out this spectacular picture of Hyperion from Cassini. The imaging technology has come a long way since the first Rangers.

If I did not know what it is, I'd swear it is a sponge. (The ocean kind.)

Wow! Jusging from the splash-like look of the big dent, it looks like something smacked it with enough juice to liquefy the rock. I'll bet there are all sorts of interesting carbon componds in those bottomless craters.

If you like the high resolution false color image then you'll really love the movie they made of the flyby.

In the movie you can get a better perspective of the floor of some of the larger craters and you can actually see that the "bottomless pits" of the craters are just regular craters that have collected some kind of dark dusty material. Cassini has already recorded information that Saturn has an enormous aura of oxygen isotopes surrounding the rings. I have a suspicion that the intense radiation of Saturn is interacting with the various components in the rings and producing some type of inorganic compound that is being carried out into various layers of Saturn’s immense radiation belts. Hyperion’s low density allows for very deep and steep walled craters to form upon impact with other smaller objects. These deep, steep craters are acting like cracks in a petroleum refinery and scooping these inorganic compounds out of nearby orbit and causing them to collect in the crater floors. It must be a very slow and low density process since the dark material seems to be only tens of meters thick in some spots.

It would be cool if Cassini could somehow take a self portrait of itself. I'm wondering if there is a dust or oily residue that maybe collecting down in some tight areas. Hope it doesn't run into something that will start to degrade its optics or data transmission abilities.