Hyperion, one of Saturn’s most bizarre moons, has added a new feature to its oddity, thanks to research done by Cornell University planetary scientist Peter Thomas.

Thomas investigated pictures of the irregular moon, situated on the 8th place in a top of moon size for Saturn, and found further evidence of Hyperion’s porous nature, previously evidenced by astronomers. The asteroid-like moon is covered with holes of different shapes and sizes which may take up 40 percent or more of its volume.

The Cassini probe, which flew several times around Hyperion in September 2005, provided researchers with highly-detailed images (taken from an altitude of 500 kilometers or 311 miles) of the celestial body’s porous surface, which indicates that the moon’s composition is a mixture of ice and carbon-based particles. This would explain perfectly the profoundness of the craters depicted in Cassini’s photos and the lack of flying debris that is usually created after an impact.

"Impacting into more porous targets means there's less debris flying around to cover them up," Peter Thomas said of the craters in his article published today in the online edition of Science.    

"The most striking visual aspect of Hyperion is its sponge-like appearance, which is unlike that of any other object imaged to date," writes Thomas. "The high porosity may be the crucial factor in crafting this unusual surface".

According to Scientific American,  in order to figure out the reason for all the craters, Thomas and his colleagues from NASA and other institutions combined the snapshots with visual, ultraviolet and infrared spectra as well as other data captured during three more distant flybys in 2005 and early 2006.