* Astronomy

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This image of Mimas was taken by the Cassini space probe on January 19, 2006 when it was approximately 1,011,360 kilometres away. The image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters.

The giant 130-kilometer wide crater Herschel on Mimas is seen against a backdrop of Saturn's rings.


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The illuminated terrain is on the moon's leading hemisphere. North on Mimas is up and rotated 20 degrees to the left.
The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini narrow-angle camera on Oct. 13, 2005 at a distance of approximately 711,000 kilometres from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 112 degrees. The image scale is 4 kilometres per pixel.

This false colour image of Saturn's moon Mimas reveals variation in either the composition or texture across its surface.
During its approach to Mimas on Aug. 2, 2005, the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera obtained multi-spectral views of the moon from a range of 228,000 kilometres.


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This image is a colour composite of narrow-angle ultraviolet, green, infrared and clear filter images, which have been specially processed to accentuate subtle changes in the spectral properties of Mimas' surface materials. To create this view, three colour images (ultraviolet, green and infrared) were combined with a single black and white picture that isolates and maps regional colour differences to create the final product.
Shades of blue and violet in the image at the right are used to identify surface materials that are bluer in colour and have a weaker infrared brightness than average Mimas materials, which are represented by green.

Herschel crater, a 140-kilometer-wide impact feature with a prominent central peak, is visible in the upper right of the image. The unusual bluer materials are seen to broadly surround Herschel crater. However, the bluer material is not uniformly distributed in and around the crater. Instead, it appears to be concentrated on the outside of the crater and more to the west than to the north or south. The origin of the colour differences is not yet understood. It may represent ejecta material that was excavated from inside Mimas when the Herschel impact occurred. The bluer colour of these materials may be caused by subtle differences in the surface composition or the sizes of grains making up the icy soil.

This image was obtained when the Cassini spacecraft was above 25 degrees south, 134 degrees west latitude and longitude. The Sun-Mimas-spacecraft angle was 45 degrees and north is at the top.