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Tiny Moon is No Space Station
An anonymous reader writes "With today's image release, Cassini's tour of Saturn's remarkable system of 31 moons has taken the probe past one of the ringed planet's natural wonders: Mimas. The 250 mile wide satellite suffered a catastrophic impact that opened a wound one third of its diameter and nearly split the moon in half. Today, Mimas bears a striking resemblance to the original Star Wars' Death Star, which wreaked havoc on planets using its laser-focusing dish. In place of the laser dish, Mimas carries a crater peak the size of Mount Everest."
as if thousands of web-browsers cried out and slashdotted a server.
[signature]
I was hoping for a giant death-star picture of the moon.. where's the crater? 69.9.161.67:2796069.9.161.67:2796069.9.161.67:2796 0
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bleh
actually, no, sorry, it is a moon.
Does my bum look big in this?
It's a trap! Sorry someone was going to say it, so we may as well get it out the way.
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I dunno, that peak in the center could just be the carefully hidden tip of the laser.
That picture looks like it was still taken from aways off and surely the Empire wouldn't want a passing shuttle to uncover it.
Nope, short of a closer look, possibly a few rovers and manned flights I think for now we better continue to assume that it IS in fact a space station planning the immenient distruction of earth. Likely they were on their way here and ran out of gas.
1997? I know Lucas would like for us to forget about that "quaint" 70's version of the film, I didn't think he'd get scientific institutions to buy it!
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
As geeky as we are, my friends and I argue who actually got the dark side points for blowing Alderaan into many small bits.
Tarkin, Vader, The Emperor... or that Imperial Officer who pulled the switch.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Voyager I took a much better picture of Mimas in 1980. Even the link given in the story mentions it. Let's wait until Cassini makes a flyby of Mimas before we get excited.
... had they posted this Friday night.
"Derp de derp."
It'd be funny if the initial broadcast of Star Wars was captured by a passing alien freighter who enjoyed it so much that they decided to "sculpt" a nearby moon to look similarly as appreciation :)
Thanks, on behalf of everyone, for the explanation. I'm sure that no one who visits this site knows how the Death Star works.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
Oddly enough the death star would fit nicely into the crater. The crater is about 130km across and the death star one is 120km across.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Tarkin and Vader do for issuing the order (Tarkin gets double: he double-crossed Leia as he did so). The officer remains neutral because he was just following an order and was probably an NPC to begin with. The Emperor wasn't even there. Don't award him any for it this time, he makes up for it in RotJ.
The real question is: Who gets the experience points for knocking out Boba Fett? Han? Lando? The sarlacc? That stick Han accidentally hit him with? The jetpack? Or R2 for starting the whole mess?
Mimas' unusual topography is hardly news. While Cassini does give us nicer pictures of the satellite, the Solar System's own personal death star has been known about since the Voyager fly-bys in the early '80s (maybe even earlier, but that's the first I heard of it, anyway).
What next,
"Cassini reports Saturn has rings"?
. . .that's a plagarism!
Really, editors. Read the articles and if the submitter ripped part of it in place of writing their own synopsis, give credit where credit is due.
The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant, next to the power of the Slashdot effect.
...but the AT&T logo is.
This picture is by Voyager, in 1980: APOD 990425. Doesn't look much worse to me (IANAA). No idea how close to Mimas Voyager was compared to Cassini, of course.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
so that's where they parked it...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Yeah, and Vader gave Ben Kenobi a "flesh wound" during their light-saber duel.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
The Emperor wasn't even there.
Dude, he's the freakin' Emperor, okay, he gets whatever dark points his minions are collecting, times 20 just for being a homicidal lightning-handed badass with the galaxies worst case of acne.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
In completely unrelated news, NASA astronomers have found evidence of oil on Uranus.
CNN: Look at Cassini. He's headed for that small moon.
Nasa: I think we can get a pic of the moon before he gets there...he's almost in range.
The small moon begins to take on the appearance of a monstrous spherical battle station.
Dubya: That's no moon! It's a space station.
Random Slahdot comment: It's too big to be a space station.
General US Population: I have a very bad feeling about this.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
(And you know that we got it!)
That was the only thing running though Carlos' head when he was reading this article.
(Reference: StarWarz Gansta Rap)
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
"Got Linux?"
I seem to remember that the depth profile of a "normal" (perpendicular impact) crater is a paraboloid.
.... Instant "Arricibo-on-steroids".
Plate Mimas's crater with foil, add a receiver
Stearing and aiming the telescope are left as an exercise for the student...
That's no moon, that's a heavily cratered abandoned battlefortress. It travelled here from a galaxy far away, a long long time ago, had it's hyperdrive conk out and stranded the crew, after they fled the collapse of the Empire.
:)
:)
They eventually spermed Mars' pan and created the D&M Pyramid to house their dying embers of life... creating canals to supply their dwindling people on a dying planet, and then pan-spermed Earth.
We know they arrived, because the Permians are no longer extant.
It's slowly rounding Endor, er, I mean Saturn, on it's way to blow up the forest moon, er, I mean the methane shrouded moon, Titan, to blow it up good !
AUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
:D
Place your bets on "-1 Redundant" versus "+5 Funny".
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.