1789 September 17. William Herschel's Discovery of Saturn Moon Mimas.
Mimas is a moon of Saturn which was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. It is named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology, and is also designated Saturn I.
With a diameter of 396 kilometres (246 mi) it is the twentieth-largest moon in the Solar System and is the smallest astronomical body that is known to be rounded in shape because of self-gravitation.
Mimas was discovered by the astronomer William Herschel on 17 September 1789. He recorded his discovery as follows: "The great light of my forty-foot telescope was so useful that on the 17th of September, 1789, I remarked the seventh satellite, then situated at its greatest western elongation."
View attachment 22563 View attachment 22564
Cassini view of Mimas's trailing hemisphere, showing craters up to 6 km deep and 1-km-deep chasmata (grooves). The large crater near center is Morgan; Arthur is close to the lower right limb. Pelion Chasma is faintly visible as a horizontal trough left of Arthur and below Morgan.
The surface area of Mimas is slightly less than the land area of Spain. The low density of Mimas, 1.15 g/cm³, indicates that it is composed mostly of water ice with only a small amount of rock. Due to the tidal forces acting on it, Mimas is noticeably prolate; its longest axis is about 10% longer than the shortest. The ellipsoidal shape of Mimas is especially noticeable in some recent images from the Cassini probe.
Mimas's most distinctive feature is a giant impact crater 130 kilometres (81 mi) across, named after Herschel. Herschel's diameter is almost a third of Mimas's own diameter; its walls are approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) high, parts of its floor measure 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) deep, and its central peak rises 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) above the crater floor. If there were a crater of an equivalent scale on Earth it would be over 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) in diameter, wider than Australia. The impact that made this crater must have nearly shattered Mimas: fractures can be seen on the opposite side of Mimas that may have been created by shock waves from the impact travelling through Mimas's body.[14]
The Mimantean surface is saturated with smaller impact craters, but no others are anywhere near the size of Herschel. Although Mimas is heavily cratered, the cratering is not uniform. Most of the surface is covered with craters greater than 40 kilometres (25 mi) in diameter, but in the south polar region, craters greater than 20 kilometres (12 mi) are generally lacking.
Map of Mimas
Three types of geological features are officially recognized on Mimas: craters, chasmata (chasms) and catenae (crater chains).
When seen from certain angles, Mimas resembles the Death Star, a fictional space station known from the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, which is said to be roughly 140 kilometres in diameter. This stems from the fact that Herschel resembles the concave disc of the Death Star's "superlaser". This is coincidental, as the film was made nearly three years before Herschel was discovered.
Mimas is a moon of Saturn which was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. It is named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology, and is also designated Saturn I.
With a diameter of 396 kilometres (246 mi) it is the twentieth-largest moon in the Solar System and is the smallest astronomical body that is known to be rounded in shape because of self-gravitation.
Mimas was discovered by the astronomer William Herschel on 17 September 1789. He recorded his discovery as follows: "The great light of my forty-foot telescope was so useful that on the 17th of September, 1789, I remarked the seventh satellite, then situated at its greatest western elongation."
View attachment 22563 View attachment 22564
Cassini view of Mimas's trailing hemisphere, showing craters up to 6 km deep and 1-km-deep chasmata (grooves). The large crater near center is Morgan; Arthur is close to the lower right limb. Pelion Chasma is faintly visible as a horizontal trough left of Arthur and below Morgan.
The surface area of Mimas is slightly less than the land area of Spain. The low density of Mimas, 1.15 g/cm³, indicates that it is composed mostly of water ice with only a small amount of rock. Due to the tidal forces acting on it, Mimas is noticeably prolate; its longest axis is about 10% longer than the shortest. The ellipsoidal shape of Mimas is especially noticeable in some recent images from the Cassini probe.
Mimas's most distinctive feature is a giant impact crater 130 kilometres (81 mi) across, named after Herschel. Herschel's diameter is almost a third of Mimas's own diameter; its walls are approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) high, parts of its floor measure 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) deep, and its central peak rises 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) above the crater floor. If there were a crater of an equivalent scale on Earth it would be over 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) in diameter, wider than Australia. The impact that made this crater must have nearly shattered Mimas: fractures can be seen on the opposite side of Mimas that may have been created by shock waves from the impact travelling through Mimas's body.[14]
The Mimantean surface is saturated with smaller impact craters, but no others are anywhere near the size of Herschel. Although Mimas is heavily cratered, the cratering is not uniform. Most of the surface is covered with craters greater than 40 kilometres (25 mi) in diameter, but in the south polar region, craters greater than 20 kilometres (12 mi) are generally lacking.
Map of Mimas
Three types of geological features are officially recognized on Mimas: craters, chasmata (chasms) and catenae (crater chains).
When seen from certain angles, Mimas resembles the Death Star, a fictional space station known from the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, which is said to be roughly 140 kilometres in diameter. This stems from the fact that Herschel resembles the concave disc of the Death Star's "superlaser". This is coincidental, as the film was made nearly three years before Herschel was discovered.
