Herschel () is a large
crater
Crater may refer to:
Landforms
*Impact crater, a depression caused by two celestial bodies impacting each other, such as a meteorite hitting a planet
*Explosion crater, a hole formed in the ground produced by an explosion near or below the surfac ...
in the leading hemisphere of the
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
ian moon
Mimas
Mimas may refer to:
*Mimas (Giant), son of Gaia in Greek mythology, one of the Gigantes
* Mimas (''Aeneid''), a son of Amycus and Theono, born the same night as Paris, who escorted Aeneas to Italy
*Karaburun, a town and district in Turkey, formerl ...
, centered on the equator at 112°
longitude. It is named after the 18th-century astronomer
William Herschel, who discovered Mimas in 1789.
Size
Herschel is the second-largest crater relative to its parent body of any
equilibrium planetary moon in the Solar System after
Tethys's crater
Odysseus
Odysseus ( ; grc-gre, Ὀδυσσεύς, Ὀδυσεύς, OdysseúsOdyseús, ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; lat, UlyssesUlixes), is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the ''Odyssey''. Odysse ...
. It is so large that astronomers have expressed surprise that Mimas was not shattered by the impact that caused it. It measures
[ across, almost one third the diameter of Mimas. Its walls are approximately high,]
Origin
The impact that formed Herschel must have nearly disrupted Mimas entirely. Chasma
In planetary nomenclature, a chasma (''plural'': chasmata ) is a deep, elongated, steep-sided depression. As of 2020, the IAU has named 122 such features in the Solar System, on Venus (63), Mars (25), Saturn's satellites Mimas (6), Tethys (2), ...
ta that may be stress fractures due to shock waves from the impact traveling through it and focusing there can be seen on the opposite side of Mimas. The impact is also suspected of having something to do with the current "Pac-Man
originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
"–shaped temperature pattern on Mimas.
Media reception
The similarity between Mimas's appearance and the Death Star in ''Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' due to the large size of Herschel has often been noted, both in the press and in NASA/JPL press releases. This is a coincidence, however, as the crater's similarities were not discovered until 1980 after Voyager 1 gained line of sight, three years after the film was made.
See also
* List of largest craters in the Solar System
*List of tallest mountains in the Solar System
This is a list of the tallest mountains in the Solar System. This list includes peaks on all celestial bodies where significant mountains have been detected. For some celestial bodies, different peaks are given across different types of measure ...
References
External links
* - featuring the Voyager 1 image
*
* - different photo than the 1995 one with the same title, features the Cassini image
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herschel (Crater On Mimas)
Impact craters on Saturn's moons
Mimas (moon)