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."

Comments

I feel a disturbance in the 'Net...

[Zarf]

as if thousands of web-browsers cried out and slashdotted a server.

That's no moon...

[kyz]

actually, no, sorry, it is a moon.

Re:That's no moon...

[awtbfb]

Shouldn't this be: from the Many Bothans died for this information dept.?

Have we really gotten close enough yet?

[shaitand]

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 Star Wars?

[JHromadka]

Although the icy moon bears a striking resemblance to the fictional 1997 'Death Star' from the Star Wars film by George Lucas, this low-density satellite probably had a more likely past not as a weapon or space station, but instead as a victim of one catastrophic day in its ancient history. That day Mimas came closer to dying rather than committing any planet-scale homicide.

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!

dark side points

[Joe the Lesser]

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.

There would be a LOT more replies..

[NanoGator]

... had they posted this Friday night.

Alien Practical Joke :-)

[Andypoo]

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 :)

Death Star?

[Gleng]

Mimas bears a striking resemblance to the original Star Wars' Death Star, which wreaked havoc on planets using its laser-focusing dish.

Thanks, on behalf of everyone, for the explanation. I'm sure that no one who visits this site knows how the Death Star works.

Re:Size

[cujo_1111]

I hereby label you Uber-Nerd, for actually knowing the physical dimensions for something that was never referenced in the movie.

You dressed as a stormtrooper for the Ep 2 release, didn't you?

Death star sites slashdoted

[erice]

The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant, next to the power of the Slashdot effect.

Re:Size

[OOO0000OO0O0]

He's not a Uber-Nerd yet, because he hasn't speculated on the possibiltiy of introducing smaller death stars within that indentation in the death star, to create a fractal death star that has a theoretically infinite line of sight. Oh, and he hasn't said whether the dish is spherical or parabolic--lots of engineering things to consider: Spherical indentations make the most sense for combining multiple laser beams, but parabolic dishes will help you assimilate jamming waves and add signal power. *runs*