Mimas
|
Project home: Mimas |
Go to Add-ons for Mimas
Mimas [MY-mass] is one of the innermost moons of Saturn. William Herschel discovered the moon in 1789. The surface is icy and heavily cratered. Mimas has a low density, meaning it probably consists mostly of ice. Because Mimas has such a low temperature of about -200° C (-328°F), the impact features may date back to the time of the moon's creation.
One of the craters, named Herschel, is surprisingly large in comparison to the size of the moon. The crater is 130 kilometers (80 miles) wide, one-third the diameter of Mimas. Herschel is 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep, with a central mountain almost as high as Mount Everest on Earth. This central peak rises 6 kilometers (4 miles) above the crater floor. This impact probably came close to disintegrating the moon. Traces of fracture marks can be seen on the opposite side of Mimas.
Although Mimas is heavily cratered, the cratering is not uniform. Most of the surface is covered with craters greater than 40 kilometers (25 miles) in diameter but in the south polar region, craters greater than 20 kilometers (12 miles) are generally lacking. This suggests that some process removed the larger craters from these areas.
Mimas was named by Herschel for the Titan who was slain by Hercules.
Mimas 1.0 2005-01-24 available at Orbiter-forum/resources.
| Saturn's natural satellites |
|---|
|
Named Satellites: Aegaeon | Aegir | Albiorix | Anthe | Atlas | Bebhlonn | Bergelmir | Bestia | Calypso | Daphnis | Dione | Enceladus | Epimetheus | Erriapo | Farbauti | Fenrir | Fornjot | Greip | Hati | Helene | Hyperion | Hyrrokkin | Iapetus | Ijiraq | Janus | Jarnsaxa | Kari | Kiviuq | Loge | Methone | Mimas | Mundilfari | Narvi | Paaliaq | Pallene | Pan | Pandora | Phoebe | Polydeuces | Prometheus | Rhea | Siarnaq | Skathi | Skoll | Surtur | Suttungr | Tarqeq | Tarvos | Telesto | Tethys | Thrymr | Titan | Ymir Numbered Satellites: S/2004 S7 | S/2004 S12 | S/2004 S17 | S/2004 S20 | S/2004 S21 | S/2004 S22 | S/2004 S23 | S/2004 S24 | S/2004 S25 | S/2004 S26 | S/2004 S27 | S/2004 S28 | S/2004 S29 | S/2004 S30 | S/2004 XXX (S5593a2) | S/2004 XXX (S5605a2) | S/204 XXX (S5613a2) | S/2004 XXX (S5801s2) | S/2004 XXX (S64454x) | S/2004 XXX (S8568a) | S/2004 XXX (T522499) | S/2006 S1 | S2006 S3 | S/2007 S2 | S/2007 S3 | S/2009 S1 | |
 | This natural satellite related article is a stub. You can help Orbiterwiki by expanding it.
|