NASA Cassini Image: Saturn's moon Mimas in crescent profile

A thin sliver of Saturn's moon Mimas, is illuminated, the long shadows showing off its many craters, indicators of the moon's violent history.

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /Space Science Institute

The most famous evidence of a collision on Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers across) is the crater Herschel (Mimantean crater) that gives Mimas its Death Star-like appearance.

This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Mimas.

North on Mimas is up and rotated 40 degrees to the right.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 20, 2013.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 100,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 130 degrees. Image scale is 4,000 feet (1 kilometer) per pixel.

This image shows the crater Herschel (Mimantean crater) on Mimas in greater detail.

Credit: NASA

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.

The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Visit the Cassini imaging team homepage.

Cassini checking in on Saturn - The Big Picture

Cassini checking in on Saturn - The Big Picture

In this view captured by Cassini on its closest-ever flyby of Saturn's moon Mimas, large Herschel Crater - 130 km (80 mi) wide - dominates the scene.

Cassini came within about 9,500 km (5,900 mi) of Mimas on Feb. 13, 2010. (NASA/JPL/SSI)

A closer view of a feature on Enceladus called Baghdad Sulcus, one of four "tiger stripes" that cross Enceladus' south pole, seen on November 21, 2009.

Cassini was targeting the area to examine plume sources, the scale is approximately 30m (100ft) per pixel. (NASA/JPL)

Saturn's moon Rhea looms near its sibling moon Epimetheus in this Cassini image with the planet and its rings in the background. The two moons aren't actually close to each other.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.2 million km (746,000 mi) from Rhea and 1.6 million km (994,000 mi) from Epimetheus.

The image was taken on March 24, 2010. Image scale is 7 km (5 mi) per pixel on Rhea and 10 km (6 mi) per pixel on Epimetheus. (NASA/JPL/SSI)


Click on the picture or on this link to view more Cassini images

NASA Cassini Images: Saturn's moon Mimas with Pacman profile

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has made the most amazing discovery in the history of science: an image of Pac-Man on the Death Star.

This is the temperature map of Mimas, Saturn's icy moon. As you can see, it's basically a giant Pac-Man about to eat a power pellet. According to Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Linda Spilker, this is really weird:

Other moons usually grab the spotlight, but it turns out Mimas is more bizarre than we thought it was. It has certainly given us some new puzzles.

NASA scientists at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have some ideas. According to Dr. Mike Flasar, composite infrared spectrometer principal investigator at Goddard, the culprit may be the giant Herschel crater:

Even though we can't explain the observed pattern of surface temperatures on Mimas, the giant Herschel crater is a leading suspect. The energy of impact that created it several billion years ago has been estimated to be one-seventh of Mimas's own gravitational energy.

Anything much larger would likely have torn the moon apart. We really would like to see if there is also an anomalous temperature pattern on the other side of Herschel, which has not been observed so closely.

Cornell University's Paul Helfenstein—who's an associate in the Cassini imagine team—speculates that the pattern may be related to "silicate minerals or carbon-rich particles, possibly because of meteor dust falling onto the moon or impurities already embedded in surface ice.

As the sun's warming rays and the vacuum of space evaporate the brighter ice, the darker material is concentrated and left behind. Gravity pulls the dark material down the crater walls, exposing fresh ice underneath."

Cassini captures new close-up of Saturn's Moon Mimas

Cassini captured this image of Mimas' giant Herschel Crater, which measures about 140 kilometers (88 miles) wide, during its Feb. 13, 2010, flyby of the Death Star-like Saturnian moon. Image credit:

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.