Multicolor Mimas

This extreme false-color view of Mimas shows color variation across the moon's surface.

To create this false-color view, ultraviolet, green and infrared images were combined into a single picture that isolates and maps regional color differences. This "color map" was then superimposed onto a clear-filter image that preserves the relative brightness across the body.

The combination of color map and brightness image shows how colors vary across Mimas' surface, and in particular, between the terrain on the extreme right side of this view and the rest of the surface. The origin of the color differences is not yet understood, but may be caused by subtle differences in the surface composition between the two terrains.

A monochrome view, the clear filter image used for the color map, is also available. See Multicolor Mimas (Monochrome View).

The view is toward the southern hemisphere on the anti-Saturn side of Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across).

The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 20, 2006 at a distance of approximately 150,000 kilometers (93,000 miles) from Mimas. Image scale is 898 meters (2,947 feet) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute