Saturn's Moon Looks Like The Death Star In New NASA Photo

Back in 1789, the Saturn moon Mimas was discovered by William Herschel, the man after whom the moon's Herschel Crater is named. This crater is massive and fairly round in shape, with rising walls around the edge and a large triangular peak in the middle...all of which are reminiscent of the Death Star, earning Mimas its nickname. NASA has just released a new photo showing off the moon and its giant crater with sharp, high-contrast clarity.

NASA published the photo shown above on Monday, though the space agency says the image itself was captured by a narrow-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft back on October 22 of last year. Multiple spectral filters were used to produce the final image.

The Herschel Crater measures 86 miles in diameter, which is nearly a third of the entire moon's diameter. The photo itself shows approximately 3,300ft per pixel, and was captured from a huge distance of 115,000 miles. As for the peak within the crater, NASA says it is almost as tall as Mt. Everest.

The photo was made possible thanks the work being done by NASA, the Italian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Cassini project, however, doing so on the behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. We'll no doubt see other Cassini photos in the future, as the spacecraft is equipped with two cameras.