--- title: Saturn's Most Tortured Moon: Tethys description: A Saturnian ice world has had a very hard life, as a new image from the Cassini spacecraft shows. canonical: https://time.com/3921359/tethys-saturn-moon/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-15T18:43:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:14.547Z article:section: Science og:title: Here's a New Look at Saturn's Most Tortured Moon og:description: A Saturnian ice world has had a very hard life, as a new image from the Cassini spacecraft shows. og:url: https://time.com/3921359/tethys-saturn-moon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta093a2d8e8cd7681/6988548e35ba6f7315c0dbfc/tethys-cassini.jpg?branch=production&width=1041&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1041 og:image:height: 586 og:image:alt: Saturn Moon Tethys Cassini og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's a New Look at Saturn's Most Tortured Moon twitter:description: A Saturnian ice world has had a very hard life, as a new image from the Cassini spacecraft shows. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta093a2d8e8cd7681/6988548e35ba6f7315c0dbfc/tethys-cassini.jpg?branch=production&width=1041&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's a Look at Saturn's Most Tortured Moon > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=77f24d5f-f9f5-421b-a465-25de4aaea435&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: A Year in Space: The Mission [Watch (HLS stream): A Year in Space: The Mission](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/gEqrnCPI.m3u8) (3:59)  _Published 2015-03-24. On March 28, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly begins a historic year in Space. Time follows Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, as they work the test the boundaries of long-term space travel._  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Jun 15, 2015 6:43 PM UTC  Saturn's moon Tethys captured by Cassini. Saturn's moon Tethys captured by Cassini. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Jun 15, 2015 6:43 PM UTC Tethys shouldn’t be alive—but it’s a lovely thing for the solar system that it is, as a recently released picture from the Cassini spacecraft makes evocatively clear. Merely one of 62 confirmed or provisional moons orbiting Saturn, Tethys is easily the one with the most compelling life story. For one thing, it is a good sister to the other moons in the Saturnian brood. At 660 mi. (1,062 km) across, it’s the fifth largest of all of Saturn’s satellites and orbits at an altitude of 182,689 miles (294,009 km). But it does not fly alone. Its tiny siblings Telesto and Calypso—19 mi. and 16 mi. across (31 km and 26 km) respectively—fly with it, with Telesto in front Calypso in the rear, and Tethys herding them along gravitationally like a mama duck. Orbiting lower than Tethys, at 147,572 miles (237,494 km) is the fanciful Enceladus. Squeezed by the gravity of both Saturn below and Tethys and other moons above, Enceladus emits sparkling, ice plume volcanos, which leave bright tendrils behind it and continually fall back down to dust the moon’s face. The result is a world that has been eternally battered by incoming meteorites but never shows the scars, since no sooner does one appear than it is covered up. Tethys enjoys no such cosmetic advantages. Nearly every one of the uncounted hits it has taken in its 4-plus billion years of life is stamped in its face, giving the rocky, icy world an almost sponge-like appearance. On the moon’s eastern limb is the biggest scar of all, the crater Odysseus, which covers 18% of Tethys’s surface. On the far-larger Earth, that would be the equivalent of a crater the size of Africa. A crack that runs nearly three-quarters of the way around the moon suggests that it almost didn’t survive the collision. Had the projectile that caused the crater been just a little bigger or moved just a little faster, it would have murdered Tethys outright. There’s no telling how many other moons in Saturn’s litter did suffer that fate. It is a matter of cosmic history that Tethys didn’t. And it’s a matter of cosmic fact that we have reason to be grateful. ### See the Astronomical League's Most Beautiful Photos from 2014  The Rosette nebula, also known as NGC 2237 or Caldwell 49, taken from Waukesha, Wisc., on Jan. 6, 2014. Dennis Roscoe, Ph.D.  The Elephant's Trunk Nebula, also known as IC 1396, on April 14, 2014. Eric Coles  The Pleiades, also known as M45 or the Seven Sisters, imaged from Fayetteville, Ark., on Jan. 25, 2014. Joel Tonyan  Andromeda Galaxy (M31), imaged from Fayetteville, Ark., on Jan. 19, 2014, Joel Tonyan  A time lapse showing star trails above Big Lagoon State Park in Pensacola, Fla., on March 30, 2014. Kenny Alexander  Eta Aquarid meteors above Bryce Canyon in Utah, in May 2014. David Lane  The Orion Nebula, taken from Waukesha, Wisc., on Feb. 7, 2014. Dennis Roscoe, Ph.D.  A star-forming nebula in Gemini, in January 2014. Brian Peterson  Propeller Nebula in Cygnus, also known as DWB111, on May 1, 2014. Eric Coles  The Milky Way, taken from Pensacola Beach in Pensacola, Fla., on March 2, 2014. Kenny Alexander  An aircraft turns over the night sky with the Milky Way in the background above Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., on Jan. 5, 2014. Matt Jylha  Pelican Nebula, taken from Waukesha, Wisc., on Jan. 9, 2014. Dennis Roscoe, Ph.D.  The Horsehead nebula, also known as Barnard 33 in emission nebula IC 434, taken at Seneca and Oswego in Illinois, Feb.-March 2014 Martin Hrdlicka  A panorama of the Milky Way taken from Fall Creek Falls State Park during the Eta Aquarid meteor shower on May 4, 2014. Matt Harbison  The Rosette nebula, also known as NGC 2237 or Caldwell 49, taken from Seneca, Ill., in March 2014. Martin Hrdlicka  The Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457, taken at the Winter Star Party in the Florida Keys on March 1, 2014. Richard S. Wright Jr.  The Milky Way with Venus rising at Pensacola Beach in Pensacola, Fla., on March 2, 2014. Kenny Alexander  Waxing Moon over Winter Garden, Fla., on Feb. 10, 2014 Matt Jylha ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3921359/tethys-saturn-moon/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3921359/tethys-saturn-moon/"},"headline":"Here's a Look at Saturn's Most Tortured Moon","datePublished":"2015-06-15T18:43:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:41:14.547Z","description":"The ice world Tethys has had a very hard life, as a new image from the Cassini spacecraft shows.","url":"https://time.com/3921359/tethys-saturn-moon/","keywords":["A Year In Space","Space","NASA","cassini","saturn"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta093a2d8e8cd7681/6988548e35ba6f7315c0dbfc/tethys-cassini.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jeffrey Kluger","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta093a2d8e8cd7681/6988548e35ba6f7315c0dbfc/tethys-cassini.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Saturn Moon Tethys Cassini","caption":"Saturn Moon Tethys Cassini","creditText":"NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/a-year-in-space/","name":"A Year In Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3921359/tethys-saturn-moon/","name":"Here's a Look at Saturn's Most Tortured Moon"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A Year in Space: The Mission","description":"On March 28, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly begins a historic year in Space. 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