Saturn's 'Death Star moon' Mimas wows in NASA image
Paging Darth Vader. NASA takes a fresh peek at a Saturn moon that looks like it could carry an army of Stormtroopers.
Out of Saturn's dozens of moons, one looks more ominous than the rest. Mimas has been hailed for its uncanny resemblance to Darth Vader's favorite spaceship, the Death Star from Star Wars. The Saturn-studying Cassini spacecraft caught a fresh look at the moon in October and NASA highlighted the image on Monday.
Mimas is 246 miles (396 kilometers) in diameter, making it more than twice as big as the Death Star is supposed to be. A large round crater called the Herschel Crater (named after the 18th-century astronomer who discovered the moon) matches the concave dish built into Vader's ride.
While the Death Star's dish contains a superlaser, the Mimas crater is home to an impressive mountain nearly the height of Mount Everest.
Cassini snapped the photo from a distance of 115,000 miles (185,000 kilometers) from Mimas. NASA points out how the shadows highlight the crater's massive walls and the peak pointing up inside. Cassini's mission is scheduled to end later this year when the spacecraft will plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.
