Saturn’s Moon Mimas

Discovered by William Herschel in 1789, Saturn’s icy moon Mimas is 246 miles in diameter and orbits just outside the visible rings. It has an enormous impact crater, discovered in 1980 and named in honor of Herschel, that is 80 miles across, with two-mile-high walls, a floor plunging six miles deep, and a central peak rising four miles from the floor. This crater makes Mimas look rather like the famous Death Star space station in the 1977 movie Star Wars. The movie came out three years before the crater was discovered.