New Scientist Breaking News - Saturn's moon is Death Star's twin

Saturn's diminutive moon, Mimas, poses as the Death Star - the planet-destroying space station from the movie Star Wars - in an image recently captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

A giant crater 138 kilometres across dominates the landscape of Mimas and represents almost one-third of the moon's diameter.

Scientists first noticed Mimas's resemblance to the Death Star when the twin Voyager spacecraft flew past Saturn in 1980 and 1981. The second film in the movie series - The Empire Strikes Back - had just hit movie theatres, recalls Cassini deputy project scientist Linda Spilker.