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Keyword: mimas

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus

    08/25/2024 2:40:47 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 33 replies
    NASA ^ | 25 Aug, 2024 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team
    Explanation: Do underground oceans vent through canyons on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole and creating Saturn's mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from the robot Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Pictured here, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. The unusual surface features dubbed tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Why Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Mimas: Small Moon with a Big Crater

    05/31/2021 4:01:29 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 15 replies
    APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 31 May, 2021 | Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute, Cassini
    Explanation: Whatever hit Mimas nearly destroyed it. What remains is one of the largest impact craters on one of Saturn's smallest round moons. Analysis indicates that a slightly larger impact would have destroyed Mimas entirely. The huge crater, named Herschel after the 1789 discoverer of Mimas, Sir William Herschel, spans about 130 kilometers and is featured here. Mimas' low mass produces a surface gravity just strong enough to create a spherical body but weak enough to allow such relatively large surface features. Mimas is made of mostly water ice with a smattering of rock - so it is accurately described...
  • Goodbye, Mimas! Saturn Moon Stuns in Cassini's Final Photo Shoot

    03/17/2017 7:17:37 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 37 replies
    space.com ^ | March 15, 2017 03:00pm ET | Sarah Lewin, Staff Writer
    Cassini flew just 25,620 miles (41,230 kilometers) from the pockmarked moon Jan. 30, on the spacecraft's seventh and final flyby of the moon. Due to a massive crater on one side, Mimas is known as the "Death Star" moon — but this time, that crater is out of view. (Another recent Cassini photo, from a November flyby, highlights the giant Herschel crater.) During the flyby, Cassini captured 10 images from about 28,000 miles (45,000 km) away that were combined into a mosaic. More than half the moon was lit only by reflected light from Saturn — one image has that...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Mimas: Small Moon with a Big Crater

    10/26/2014 7:11:52 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 10 replies
    NASA ^ | October 21, 2014 | (see photo credit)
    Explanation: Whatever hit Mimas nearly destroyed it. What remains is one of the largest impact craters on one of Saturn's smallest moons. The crater, named Herschel after the 1789 discoverer of Mimas, Sir William Herschel, spans about 130 kilometers and is pictured above. Mimas' low mass produces a surface gravity just strong enough to create a spherical body but weak enough to allow such relatively large surface features. Mimas is made of mostly water ice with a smattering of rock - so it is accurately described as a big dirty snowball. The above image was taken during the 2010 February...