Herschel (Mimas crater)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Herschel is the largest impact crater on Saturn's moon Mimas .

Saturn's moon Mimas, on the right the huge Herschel crater. Image taken by the Cassini spacecraft on February 13, 2010.
Enlarged representation

The crater is the largest and most noticeable relief feature of Mimas. It has a diameter of about 130 km and thus makes up a third of the diameter of the moon. Its crater wall is almost 5 km high, its floor is partially 10 km below the surrounding terrain, and its central mountain rises at least 6 km above the ground. Since the sharpest recordings of Mimas by the Cassini space probe on August 1, 2005, the height of the central mountain has been estimated to be up to 11 km. This makes it one of the highest central mountains in the solar system .

The impact that created this impact crater must have nearly torn the moon apart. On the opposite side of Mimas, areas of fractures and faults can be seen, likely caused by the seismic shock waves of the impact.

The crater is located on the hemisphere that precedes the orbital movement and lies with the center of its central mountain almost exactly on the equator . It was named in 1982 by the IAU after the German-British astronomer William Herschel , who discovered Mimas on September 17, 1789.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herschel (Mimaskrater) in the IAU's Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature (WGPSN) / USGS

Web links

Commons : Herschel (Mimaskrater)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files