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Saturn's Icy Moon Tethys Looks a Lot Like the Death Star
Saturn's Icy Moon Tethys Looks a Lot Like the Death Star
Nov 17, 2024 8:17 AM

A view of Tethys, one of Saturn's larger icy moons, taken on Nov. 16, 2016.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

NASA described Saturn’s moon Tethys as looking like a giant eyeball, but Star Wars fans may see a certain galactic superweapon known as the Death Star.

Though the satellite may give Chewbacca and company flashbacks, NASA says , according to a release.

An enormous crater on the moon, Odysseus, gives it its eyeball-like appearance. The void was created by a large impact, the rebound of which caused mountainous peaks to form in its center. Researchers refer to the peaks as Scheria Montes.

Tethys is 660 miles across and has suffered many impacts, which has given it its heavily pockmarked surface.

The image was captured on Nov. 10, 2016.by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which is part of a cooperative mission between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency.

After a 20-year run, on Sept. 15. Cassini will be crash-landed because it has run out of gas after studying the Ringed Planet for two decades, which is 16 years longer than initially planned.

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