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 presented here.
The view is toward the southern hemisphere on the anti-Saturn side of Mimas (396 kilometers, 246 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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.