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Tiny Moon is No Space Station

Posted by michael on from the stay-on-target dept.

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."

2 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. No progress yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  2. Not really news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    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"?