29th March 2010
Well no…Pac Man is not really on Mimas, but it sure looks like it from the latest and highest resolution temperature map of Saturn’s icy satellite. Mimas is nicknamed “The Death Star” from it’s 81 mile wide impact crater Herschel that takes up nearly a third of it’s width, it is also the moon with the job of keeping the Cassini Division clear.
The Nasa Cassini Spacecraft made the temperature map on February the 14th during it’s close flyby. The bright regions show the “warm” areas on Mimas, although these warm areas are not really very tropical, they are still a bone shatteringly cold minus 284 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature of the rest of Mimus is an even chillier, minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit.
But the mysterious shape of the warmer parts have baffled scientists. The Pac Man shape has sharp boundaries to it, and think it could have something to do with the Herschel Crater impact melting surface ice spreading out across the moon. Another idea is that the difference between different icy surface textures is producing these results. The crater Herschel shows up as a warm spot, but this would be likely as the 3.1 mile high crater walls would trap any heat inside.
The solar system keeps throwing up surprises, and nothing usually turns out as expected. From Enceladus’s geysers to Titan’s Lakes, although maybe not as spectacular, this one from Mimas is still another eye opener and a puzzle for scientists to ponder over.
