Post by Logan on Jan 16, 2016 23:24:28 GMT -6
The View from Mars Hill: A planetary moon with a Hollywood pedigree
In the 1977 blockbuster “Star Wars,” Obi-Wan Kenobi ominously observed, "That's no moon, it's a space station," as Han Solo piloted the Millennium Falcon toward a large spherical body with a distinct circular feature.
Three years after this movie was released, science would meet pop culture when the real-life Voyager space probe observed a large crater on a distant world, revealing an uncanny similarity between this body — which really is a moon — and the “Star Wars” orb known as the Death Star. Sometimes referred to as the “Death Star Moon,” this cratered entity is one of the 62 confirmed satellites of Saturn and officially goes by the name Mimas.
German-born astronomer William Herschel discovered Mimas on Sept. 17, 1789, using his colossal 48-inch-diameter, 40-foot-long telescope mounted in Slough, England. The name Mimas was first suggested by William’s son, John, in 1847. Like his father, John was also a noted astronomer. He named not only the seven largest moons of Saturn, but also four moons of Uranus.
Mimas measures 246 miles in diameter, making it Saturn’s seventh largest moon. This is only about one-eighth the diameter of our moon and roughly equals the distance between Flagstaff and Tucson. Mimas is the smallest known astronomical body to become rounded by the force of its own gravity (scientists call this “hydrostatic equilibrium”).
Continue reading at azdailysun.com/news/opinion/columnists/the-view-from-mars-hill-a-planetary-moon-with-a/article_e9a0998e-74dc-50eb-8d2f-9a61dc84d4b0.html .