Phoebe: A Surface Dominated by Water

The Saturnian irregular satellite, Phoebe, can be broadly described as a water-rich rock. This object, which presumably originated from the same primordial population shared by the dynamically excited Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), has received high-resolution spectral imaging during the Cassini flyby. We present a new analysis of the Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer observations of Phoebe, which critically, includes a geometry correction routine that enables pixel-by-pixel mapping of visible and infrared spectral cubes directly onto the Phoebe shape model, even when an image exhibits significant trailing errors. The result of our re-analysis is a successful match of 46 images, producing spectral maps covering the majority of Phoebe’s surface, roughly a third of which is imaged by high-resolution observations (