International Space Fellowship - 2010 Feb 12
On Feb. 13, 2010, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will make its closest examination yet of Mimas, an eyeball-shaped moon of Saturn that has also been likened to the Death Star of “Star Wars.” The spacecraft will be returning the highest-resolution images yet of this battered satellite.
Mimas bears the mark of a violent, giant impact from the past – the 140-kilometer-wide (88-mile-wide) Herschel Crater – and scientists hope the encounter will help them explain why the moon was not blown to smithereens when the impact happened. They will also be trying to count smaller dings inside the basin of Herschel Crater so they can better estimate its age.
During its approach to Mimas on Aug. 2, 2005, the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera obtained multi-spectral
views of the moon from a range of 228,000 kilometers (142,500 miles). (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)