There are certain things that you learn in a newsroom when the space reporter is away on vacation. One of them is that Saturn has a tiny moon shaped like a dumpling.

The moon, Atlas, is just 19 miles across, and orbits the large planet outside of its "A ring" -- the outermost of the planet's main rings, NASA said.

SEE ALSO:Amazing Photo Shows Saturn Dwarfing Tiny Moon

On April 12, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took these pictures of the celestial dumpling, er, I mean moon, Atlas.

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The spacecraft whizzed by the moon at a distance of about 7,000 miles, making these the closest pictures ever taken of Atlas. Scientists hope the images will help them better understand the moon's shape and geology.

A post shared by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (@nasajpl) on Apr 14, 2017 at 9:28am PDT

In addition to the still images, NASA released an animation of the flyby, which just makes me even hungrier.

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