Space Topics: Saturn
Mimas
That's No Space Station...
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
Size: Sub-spherical, 418 x 392 x 382 kilometers
- 7th largest moon of Saturn
Orbital radius: 185,520 kilometers - 3.08 Saturn radii - within
the E ring
Orbital period: 0.9424 days - about 1/17 of Titan’s
Discovery: 1789 by William Herschel
Mimas is the first of Saturn's medium-sized moons, lying outside the main
ring system but within the tenuous E ring. Its surface is completely saturated
with craters, indicating that it has not changed much in billions of years.
The largest crater, Herschel, is named for Mimas’ discoverer. All
of the other craters are named after characters from the Keith Baines translation
of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur legends of
Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.
The highest resolution Voyager 1 images of Mimas reached the public only
four months after The Empire Strikes Back appeared in theaters, and now Mimas
is thought of as "the Death Star Moon" because of its striking resemblance
to the Empire's planet-destroying spacecraft from the first Star Wars movie.
Flybys of Mimas
Voyager 1
November 13, 1980 at approximately 01:30 UTC
Closest approach altitude 88,440 kilometers (53,064 miles)
Voyager 2
August 26, 1980 at approximately 02:30 UTC
Closest approach altitude 309,990 kilometers (185,994 miles)
Cassini
January 16, 2005 at 06:08 UTC
“0CMI” nontargeted flyby
Closest approach altitude 107,633 kilometers (64,580 miles)
Cassini
August 2, 2005 at 04:24 UTC
“12MI” nontargeted flyby
Closest approach altitude 62,699 kilometers (37,619 miles)
Map of Mimas
Global map of Mimas (simple cylindrical projection)
Global map centered at 180 degrees longitude (the anti-Saturnian point). The map is 2,048 pixels wide, and Mimas' diameter is 397 kilometers, so the map resolution is 609 meters per pixel at the equator. A more up-to-date version may be available at Steve Albers' website.
Credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute / Steve Albers
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