Moon of Saturn
Mimas
Saturn's small inner moon with a giant crater eye.
Mimas is the innermost of Saturn's major moons and races around the planet in under 23 hours. It is tidally locked, always showing Saturn the same face. Its orbit is more elongated than that of neighboring Enceladus.
How it moves
- Mimas orbits Saturn every 0.942 days (22 hours 36 minutes) at about 185,520 km.
- It is tidally locked to Saturn.
- Its orbit is noticeably eccentric (0.0202) for such a close moon.
- Mimas is part of the web of resonances among Saturn's inner moons, including Dione and Enceladus.
Facts
- Mean radius
- 198.2 km
- Mass
- 3.790e+19 kg
- Surface gravity
- 0.064 m/s²
- Rotation period
- 22.618 hours
- Orbital period
- 0.942 days
- Average orbital distance
- 185,520 km
- Eccentricity
- 0.0202
- Discovered
- 1789, by William Herschel
Mimas's Herschel Crater spans about a third of the moon's diameter, like a giant eye.
Sources: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov, ssd.jpl.nasa.gov, ssd.jpl.nasa.gov