* Astronomy

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: Mimas, Dione and Rhea


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: Mimas
Permalink  
 


Saturn's moon Mimas, whose low density suggests that it is primarily composed of ice, has a flattened or oblate shape reminiscent of Saturn's.
The moon's equatorial dimension is nearly 10 percent larger than the polar one due to the satellite's rapid rotation.


Mimas is 397 kilometres across.

This view shows principally the leading hemisphere on Mimas. Mimas' largest crater, Herschel (130 kilometres wide), is centred roughly on the equator and can be seen here. North on Mimas is toward upper left.
The moon's oblateness is exaggerated by Cassini's viewing angle here - the Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle was 5 degrees leaving a sliver of the moon's disk in shadow on the northwest limb.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 20, 2005, at a distance of approximately 916,000 kilometres from Mimas. Resolution in the original image was 5 kilometres per pixel.
The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.

__________________


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: Mimas, Atlas
Permalink  
 


The Cassini spacecraft took this image in visible light with the narrow-angle camera on April 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometres from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 72 degrees.
The image scale is 13 kilometres per pixel.



The great eye of Saturn's moon Mimas, a 130-kilometer-wide impact crater called Herschel, stares out from the battered moon.
Several individual ringlets within the F ring are resolved here, and the small moon Atlas is also seen faintly outside the main rings.
Mimas is 397 kilometres wide ; the view shows principally the moon's anti-Saturn hemisphere.
Atlas is 32 kilometres across.



__________________


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Mimas, Dione and Rhea
Permalink  
 


Saturn's moon's Mimas, Dione and Rhea, (left to right) on the far side of Saturn's nearly edge-on rings.


Expand

The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecrafts narrow-angle camera on March 15, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.4 million kilometres from Saturn.


__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.



Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse
Powered by ActiveBoard