[meteorite-list] Cassini Flies by Saturn's Tortured Moon Mimas

[Ron Baalke]

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109.  TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
					  	  
Carolina Martinez (818) 354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 	

Preston Dyches (720) 974-5859
Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations 
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. 

Image Advisory: 2005-129			August 5, 2005

Cassini Flies by Saturn's Tortured Moon Mimas

On its recent close flyby of Mimas, the Cassini spacecraft 
found the Saturnian moon looking battered and bruised, with a 
surface that may be the most heavily cratered in the Saturn 
system. 
 
The Aug. 2 flyby of Saturn's 'Death Star' moon returned 
eye-catching images of its most distinctive feature, the 
spectacular 140-kilometer diameter (87-mile) landslide-
filled Hershel crater. Numerous rounded and worn-out craters, 
craters within other craters and long grooves reminiscent of 
those seen on asteroids are also seen in the new images.

The new Mimas images are available at 
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and 
http://ciclops.org .  Also available is an approach 
movie showing Mimas, and a zoom and pan across the surface of 
one of the highest resolution images.

The closest images show Mimas, measuring 397 kilometers 
(247 miles) across, in the finest detail yet seen.  One 
dramatic view acquired near Cassini's closest approach 
shows the moon against the backdrop of Saturn's rings.  A 
false color composite image reveals a region in blue and red 
of presumably different composition or texture just west of, 
and perhaps related to, the Hershel crater.  

Scientists hope that analysis of the images will tell them 
how many crater-causing impactors have coursed through the 
Saturn system, and where those objects might have come from.  
There is also the suspicion, yet to be investigated, that the 
grooves, first discovered by NASA's Voyager spacecraft but now 
seen up close, are related to the giant impact that caused the 
biggest crater of all, Herschel, on the opposite side of the 
moon. 
   
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, 
the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.  The 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California 
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the 
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate, Washington, D.C.  The Cassini orbiter and its 
two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled 
at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space 
Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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