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

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Aug 5 14:51:30 2005
Message-ID: <200508051850.j75IoKS29998_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

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.

-end-
Received on Fri 05 Aug 2005 02:50:20 PM PDT