Mimas "The Death Star". Click for a really closer look (see text). Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

On February 13, 2010 the Cassini spacecraft made a close pass at the Saturn moon Mimas.  The image above was taken from about 70,600 km (~ 43,680 miles).

The main feature that just sticks out is the huge impact crater called Hershel, so named for William Herschel the discoverer of Mimas (on September 17, 1789).  Mimas is not a very big moon and the crater Hershel is some 130 km (nearly 81 miles!) across.   It’s easy to see where the “Death Star” analogy comes from.

The Cassini site had a raw image of a portion of Hershel from just 18,017 km (11,195 mi), I did some processing on it and you can see it by clicking the image above.