Saturn's 'Death Star' moon (Mimas) could harbor a strange secret

[theHandpuppet]

The Los Angeles Times
Saturn's 'Death Star' moon could harbor a strange secret
by Amina Khan
October 17, 2014, 12:06 PM

When it comes to Saturn’s moons, water-squirting Enceladus and the hydrocarbon lakes of Titan typically steal the spotlight. But now, scientists think that lesser-known Mimas may be harboring a strange secret of its own. Scientists who studied the ‘Death Star’ moon with NASA’S Cassini spacecraft have discovered a weird wobble in its motions that could mean one of two things: Either Mimas has an oddly elongated core, or it’s hiding an ocean inside its icy body.

The findings, described in the journal Science, shed new light on a mysterious but often-overlooked moon that could hold clues to its early formation.

Mimas is an icy moon that’s 246 miles wide and whose most distinctive feature is the 88-mile-wide Herschel crater – a giant Cyclops-like indentation that makes the moon resemble the planet-obliterating superweapon from "Star Wars" that's known as the Death Star.

For a paper led by Radwan Tajeddine of Cornell University, an international team set out to study this lesser-known Saturnian satellite. Using a method called stereo-photogrammetry, the researchers built a precise 3D computer model of hundreds of reference points on the moon’s surface with the help of Cassini photographs taken at different times and from different angles....

MORE at http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-mimas-moon-saturn-death-star-cassini-ocean-20141017-story.html

[Warren DeMontague]

1. ....it's "no moon"?

[Scootaloo]

2. We all know what it is...

[Louisiana1976]

3. Fascinating post.